


Trust In Gravity

by Mithrigil



Series: Trust in Gravity [1]
Category: Final Fantasy X
Genre: Crisis of Faith, Gen, Grief/Mourning, It never ends well, M/M, Parenthood, Pre-Canon, Religion, Religious Conflict, Sexual Fantasy, Unresolved Sexual Tension, don't fall in love with a martyr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-19
Updated: 2015-01-29
Packaged: 2018-03-08 06:29:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 49,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3198926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithrigil/pseuds/Mithrigil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The trials of Braska’s pilgrimage started long before he even left Bevelle.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is going to cover the three years leading up to Braska's Pilgrimage. There will probably be more stories afterward that deal with the journey itself, but god damn it must have been hard for him to get out the temple doors. I've tagged this with UST because Braska and Auron will almost definitely hook up on the road, but fair warning, they don't get that far just yet. I hope I don't need another fifty thousand words to get them to that point.
> 
> As with nearly all I do, I thank my lovely wife puella_nerdii for getting me started, keeping me on track, and holding my hand when I can't make it type. The names of the aeons were her idea too.

**PROLOGUE**

The parade’s already begun. The high street is cluttered with people, civilians cheering in their best robes, merchants hawking food, lost children, wary guards, unscrupulous gamblers placing bets as if this is a blitzball game and not a glorious event. The permitted machina roll along the street polished to a blinding sheen, almost as bright as the sea, and they burst with music and ribbons and the crackle of ozone, and that’s just on the perimeter of the avenue and the rooftops. Auron can’t even see past the crowd into the thoroughfare. It’s probably even more amazing out there. 

If he and Kinoc get caught, they’re in so much trouble. They’re supposed to be guarding the temple. But it’s a _parade_. When else do those happen? Not even the summoners get sent off with parades.

“Come on!” Kinoc climbs higher on the stack of crates, braces himself against the wall sconces. He’d have an easier time if he trained more, but there’s no point in Auron saying so right now. Better to lead by example. So Auron ignores the crates and scuttles up the wall of the bridge using the sconces and pillars for handholds. It means he gets to see a little less for now, but if he can make it to the top he’ll get to see _everything_. “Man,” Kinoc goes on, a little short of breath, “Maester Jyscal’s hat looks stupid.”

Auron holds tight to the wall and struggles to look over his shoulder. He squints into the crowd, and the Maesters are clustered on an enormous glowing float, broader than two shoopufs side by side. Maester Jyscal’s hat doesn’t look any more stupid than the rest of them, and Auron is about to say so when he sees the reason for the parade, and finds himself struck dumb.

They’ve sent three priests to negotiate with the Al Bhed, and one of them is beautiful.

He can’t be much more than twenty but his hair is the color of new iron, longer and straighter than a sword, in a braid thrown over his shoulder. His robes are the same as the other two priests’, of course, but something about how he wears them is different, like he doesn’t belong in them, like they’re not enough. He’s tall, nearly as tall as a Guado, with a pale sloping neck and a strangely hard jaw, and eyes brighter than pyreflies and bluer than the sky.

He looks directly at Auron -- it has to be by chance -- and laughs.

Auron loses his grip on the wall and doesn’t feel himself hit the river.

(He’ll feel it later when the master-at-arms switches him in the same spot, but a part of him will think it’s worth it.)

*

**EIGHT YEARS LATER**

Bevelle hasn’t changed. Braska’s not sure he expected it to. Neither have the people. They were always this stubborn, always this wary of anything that wasn’t prescribed or taught, always this unforgiving.

Braska still loves them. All of them. But that may be his problem, not theirs.

“I understand if the accommodations aren’t what you’re used to,” Brother Zuke says, and he probably means it. He stops in front of room and opens the door: inside, it turns out to be a very little smaller than the cottage they lived in on the outskirts for these past four years, but only one room. Brightly woven cloth hangs on the walls, a little frayed at the corners, and the floor is stacked with cushions and low tables. A damp, musty smell hangs over it all, and Braska realizes there aren’t any windows. That, and it being much less machina-proximate than the rest of the temple--the nearest restorative sphere is all the way back at the dormitory entrance--makes him wonder if this was a converted storage space or supply closet. When he was a priest, he may not have had a room to himself, but he saw how the families of his colleagues lived, and it wasn’t like this.

But he smiles, and holds Yuna’s hand tighter, and asks her, “Well? Do you like it?”

Yuna looks up at him, like his question wasn’t permission enough, and blinks. He nods, _it’s really okay._ Then she lowers her eyes so that Brother Zuke doesn’t look into them, lets go of Braska’s hand, and carefully steps into the room. Some of the cushions come up to her knees. She pokes one, and it topples onto the next. And then she looks up at him, again, far too serious for a four-year-old. “It’s nice,” she says, then makes a stately prayer up at Brother Zuke. “Thank you, sir. Praise be to Yevon.”

“Well, there you have it!” Braska says, smiling. “It passes inspection. Go on, Yuna, pick which side of the room you want to be your side. Then we can go meet your new teacher. All right?”

“All right!” She quickly scouts the cushions for the warmest place, and after some deliberation decides that the side with all the blue cushions, farthest from the table, is best. She nods cheerfully at Braska, then spreads out her arms and flops backward, the same way she does when she carves birds into the sand and doesn’t want to leave any footprints. A puff of dust squeaks out from the pillows, and she sneezes, and Braska can’t help laughing.

Zuke looks very briefly mortified.

Braska shakes his head. “We can make it work. I do appreciate your generosity.”

“If it were me, I would have been more generous,” Zuke says. He lowers his voice enough that he probably doesn’t intend for Yuna to hear him, but he doesn’t know how well Yuna listens. “Brother Braska, this is --”

Braska shakes his head, cuts him off. “I’m sorry. Please, don’t call me that anymore. I’ve been cast out. You outrank me now.”

Zuke doesn’t find it as amusing as Braska, evidently. “But you’ve never lost your faith. I can’t think of you as only an acolyte.”

“Then I promise I’ll work hard and be worthy of your respect again.”

Zuke grits his teeth and shakes his head, but doesn’t say anything further. Yuna, on the cushions, has turned onto her side and curled up, eyes shut.

Braska raises a finger to his lips to tell Zuke to be quiet, and tiptoes over to kneel next to Yuna. “Yuna? Are you tired?”

“A little,” she nods, sleepily.

He smiles. “Go ahead and take a nap, all right? We can meet your teachers when you wake up.”

She smiles, and nestles into the pillows, and that’s answer enough. “Will Sysy visit?”

He’ll have to talk to her about not speaking Al Bhed in the temple. But that can wait. “Yes, Mama will visit when you dream. And I’ll be here when you wake up, I promise.”

By the time she drifts off to sleep, Zuke has absented himself from the room, and Braska has a little more to worry about.

But he meant what he said, they’ll make it work. As forbidding as this place can be, it’s still home, more home than anyplace else in the world. And better to start his summoner training here, at the most forbidding place, because if he’s going to do this, it will be against even greater odds than gaining the Maesters’ acceptance. Forgiveness, he’s sure he could get if he sought it, but why seek _forgiveness_ for finding the love of his life?

He strokes his daughter’s hair. Remty used to do this. She had much gentler hands than his; her idling and fidgeting never woke Yuna up, and she could brush Yuna’s hair, or even plait Braska’s, while they were still asleep. He recalls one morning, a few months before Yuna was born, when he woke up to an empty house and panicked before finally looking in the mirror: Remty had clipped a note to a new long braid in his hair, to practice her Spiran script, _Gone to the market. Craving red squash. Isn’t that a good omen? Love you!_

Years later, before she left for the Al Bhed Home, she said, _I’m going on ahead of you._ She didn’t know how true it was.

Even with his daughter right there beside him, Braska can’t help thinking, _I know, Remty. I’ll be along soon._

*

When Braska last lived at the Temple of Bevelle, he had been cloistered, somewhat literally, with other priests his age and rank. As apprentices, they had lived in threes and fours; as initiates, in twos. If a priest decided to marry--well, if he decided to marry with the approval of the Maesters--he and his wife would be allotted a small apartment, two rooms at least, and if the priest rose within the ranks his home would rise with him. The warrior monks owned no property, but the priests and priestesses could make themselves homes, lives, families. Before he’d gone to meet with the Al Bhed, Braska had thought that life was all he could possibly want.

His old friends and colleagues are living that life, now, in these bright halls. Braska wanders, more wistful and trepid than he’d prefer. Bevelle is home, but he’s only barely welcome. Priestesses glance his way as they pass, cover their mouths and avert their eyes. Lay monks and workers bend over their brooms and rags, concentrate on scrubbing until he passes. A warrior monk waits until Braska has passed his post to whisper to his friend, _That’s the heretic, right?_

Braska shudders to think what they’re saying about Yuna. But she’s charmed the healers who will be her teachers, and the worst he’s seen on their faces is pity. She’ll bear up well.

And he resolves to do the same. If he can’t train here, in the face of all this pity and derision, then he has no right to become a summoner at all.

But that doesn’t mean he has to stay on these floors, and in these exact halls. He lets his feet guide him, takes the machina elevator down to the courtyard levels. Natural light seems almost strange after a day of glowing spheres and his new, windowless room, and open air is even more welcome.

He may never have been in this courtyard before: if he was, years ago, it’s been renovated since. The space is open, a deep recess framed by a stone porch with curling gold arches. In one far corner, there is a small meditative garden of sand and spider-branched trees; in another, a restorative sphere and a tall rack of training weapons. This must be one of the monks’ areas, but in this moment, with the sunlight and near-silence, Braska finally feels welcome, if alone.

He stands still a moment, shuts his eyes, lets his robes and braid weigh on his shoulders and just breathes. Lives. Takes this moment. It’s his now, and can’t be taken from him.

But it can, evidently, be shared: Braska isn’t alone.

Honestly, it’s amazing that he didn’t notice the monk in the courtyard. He’s not exactly being quiet. Not noisy, but his blade isn’t silent on the air and there’s a growl in his breath that could drive prey away. He goes through forms, elegant and deadly, and even if he has no opponent there’s no uncertainty that he’s victorious over his imagined enemy. It’s hypnotic to watch, and Braska finds his heart racing, as if he, not the monk, is the one fighting here. And the monk doesn’t pay him any mind at all, gives himself wholly to whatever he’s facing.

These aren’t just sword forms, Braska realizes. He’s imagining a real enemy, someone he can’t face in earnest, and is taking his anger out on the air. Something too new, too raw, too personal to mediate away, and so he fights. Braska would know that anywhere, but the strength in this monk’s arms, the unrestrained anger in his eyes--

What would it be like, to be the target of that focus, to be the only thing in his sight? Frightening, certainly.

The monk looks up, catches Braska’s eyes, falters out of his stance. He’s young, it turns out, twenty perhaps, a full initiate or even a sub-commander. He wears his hair long--not as long as Braska’s but then, he thinks, amused, whose is?--and it’s the same rich dark brown as his eyes. The surprise reflected in them makes him less terrifying.

“Forgive me,” Braska says, since he is, after all, the intruder, “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“It’s fine,” the monk says, mostly breath. “I didn’t see you.”

Braska smiles, steps into the courtyard. “May I?”

The monk’s shoulders relax, but his grip on his sword doesn’t slacken. “What, may you stay?”

So he’s confused, then. That’s all. “If you don’t mind,” Braska says, and the monk nods, but doesn’t resume his shadowboxing.

Oh. He’s sizing Braska up. That makes sense: Braska’s rather obviously too old to be wearing the robes of a mere summoner’s acolyte, and if this monk has been here since he was a child he may have seen Braska before. But something tells him that he shouldn’t bring this up, not yet.

“Is something troubling you?” Braska asks instead.

The monk narrows his eyes.

Braska tries again. “I’m not much of a sparring partner, but I don’t mind if you need to keep fighting.”

The monk’s laugh sounds almost like a snarl, and his smile is terse, but his eyes brighten along with it. It reminds Braska of a machina that Remty once fixed for some Al Bhed travelers, coming obstinately to life the second after she turned the last screw. “I shouldn’t,” he says. “I’ll go somewhere else to meditate.”

“Shouldn’t? But I’m the one who interrupted you. If anything, I should leave you be.”

“I meant I shouldn’t be fighting. Shouldn’t be angry,” he corrects with a curl of his lip. “But it isn’t fair. I should leave you be. Praise be to Yevon.”

Years ago, when Braska was just an apprentice, it was easy for him to sort among the other children for who would enter the priesthood and who would take the warrior’s path. It had a great deal to do with whether one’s anger was hot or cold. Both paths required intense control, of course, but the priests’ way was one of long fuses and longer games, and the monks’ path was one of constant burn. It’s not that the priests never got angry, because they certainly do, but a priest makes sure you never see it until it’s too late. If a monk is angry, you know.

A monk is telling Braska he’s angry--and _shouldn’t_ be. Which means he’s angry at one of his own.

But it takes Braska time to come up with all this, and the monk is already on his way out. His back is turned, and there’s so much tension through him, and Braska can’t help but reach out.

“They can be so stubborn,” Braska says, with all the understanding in the world, “can’t they?”

The monk stops. He doesn’t turn around, but he glances over his shoulder, just for a moment.

Braska lowers his eyes, even if the monk isn’t looking. “I remember, once, I corrected my teacher on a point of doctrine, in front of everyone. She was so embarrassed that she refused to teach me or acknowledge my questions for a month. She just pretended I wasn’t there whenever I spoke.”

The monk chuckles to himself, a low dark sound, and turns around. “So you’ve been here longer than your robes indicate.”

Braska nods. “I find I’m still getting in trouble for the things I say. And do.”

Such a striking smile that monk has, small and wry, but it youthens his face, crinkles his eyes and raises his cheeks to change his shape almost entirely. “Then I’m not the only one.”

“Far from.”

The monk nods, comes a step nearer, but stops to lean on one of the pillars, and folds his arms as if to hide his hands. “Our commander discovered an Al Bhed machina in our room,” he says. “Not forbidden, just unknown. My roommate has difficulty writing and wanted something to steady his hand. He earned it last week, in exchange for guarding a caravan.”

Braska understands: since monks can’t own property at all, that machina was considered a gift. A gift, from the Al Bhed, on the same day the Temple grudgingly welcomed Braska back into the fold.

“Of course they reprimanded Itka,” the monk goes on, and his smile is gone. “But I couldn’t hold back. The commander’s wrong. Itka only wanted to better serve Yevon. And now he’s mad at me for speaking up. I made it worse.” He sighs. “I shouldn’t trouble you.”

“It’s no trouble,” Braska says. “I’m commiserating.”

Perhaps for a moment, the monk’s tight smile returns; Braska certainly can’t help his own.

Braska goes on, “Sometimes, it seems like the Maesters make it harder to serve Yevon, not easier.” It’s a truly heretical thing to say, but it _shouldn’t_ be, and the quick burst of shock in the monk’s eyes is followed by the most reassuring calm Braska could hope for.

“So it would seem,” the monk says, and sweeps into a prayer, grander and less perfunctory than his last. “Praise be to Yevon.”

Braska prays just the same. “Praise be to Yevon. What’s your name?”

“Auron,” the monk says. “And you?”

“Braska.”

Recognition doesn’t so much _dawn_ on Auron. It would be more accurate to say that it slaps him across the face, but leaves amusement instead of anger. _Remty would have liked this man,_ Braska thinks. _And not only because he’s not narrow-minded._

“You’re _that_ Braska,” Auron laughs.

Braska grins. “Guilty as charged.”

“I was there the day you left,” Auron says, low, tense. “And they day you returned, only to leave again. I was a guard at the Maesters’ chamber.” He must have been little more than a boy back then, twelve or thirteen. “They’ve let you return, after everything they said to you?”

“I haven’t returned to the priesthood.” He glances down at his robes, strokes his fingertips along the cuffs. “I’m here to train as a summoner.”

Aside from people who are directly connected to a summoner’s training, and the Maesters themselves, Auron is the first person Braska’s told. That his first reaction is surprise, not horror, leaves Braska optimistic, but then Auron’s been nothing but gracious so far.

And then Auron asks, “How can you? After all they’ve done?” and Braska’s optimism skyrockets into admiration.

“I do it for the people of Spira,” Braska confesses, and knows that this Auron is someone he can trust, with this, with anything. “Not the Maesters.”

Auron raises his head, looks Braska in the eyes. He doesn’t smile, exactly, but if Braska had to put a name to his expression, eyes blown wide and lips slightly parted, it’d place it somewhere between hope and awe.

“Praise be to Yevon,” Auron says, and this time, it’s most like an actual prayer.

*

Itka is still serving his punishment and isn’t speaking to Auron, but Kinoc is, so at least he doesn’t have to eat alone. It’s fermented rice stew with beans and shallots today, spiced so pungently that the scent curls up from his bowl with the steam. Auron’s been sitting with a spoon in his hand for five minutes at least. Not that the food’s unappetizing--no less than usual, and he’s grateful--and not that he’s not hungry. Something’s not ready. Something’s not complete.

He meditated for an hour after leaving Lord Braska in the courtyard. It was like sleeping, unusual, dark. His mind cleared, and his spirit was steady, but once he opened his eyes and got up, the puzzle of Lord Braska remained. Why endure so much scorn? Why serve the same people who barred your way? How much patience can one man have?

Kinoc plunks down at the board, digs in to his stew with gusto. “Guess what I just heard?”

Auron can certainly guess. “Lord Braska has returned to train as a summoner and is flouting the teachings of Yevon.”

Kinoc laughs around a mouthful of rice. “You always get everything before I do. How’d you hear?”

“Around,” Auron says, because Kinoc doesn’t have to know.

“Saves me the trouble of telling you, I guess. I can’t believe they let him bring his daughter. She’s a half-breed, you know?”

That part, Auron hadn’t heard. Kinoc doesn’t have to know that either. He sets his spoon down on the edge of the bowl. “What does that matter if she’s here to learn?”

Kinoc rolls his eyes, swallows. “Get off your high horse about the Al Bhed, Auron. They’re heretics.”

“The Maesters used to say the same thing about the Guado. Go ahead, call Maester Jyscal a heretic. I’ll wait.”

“Look, it’s not about that.”

“Then what is it about?”

“He married an Al Bhed. He had a child with one.”

“Maester Jyscal’s wife did the same. Their son is in training at Macalania. I still don’t see a problem.”

“The problem isn’t the mixing. The problem is the _Al Bhed_.”

Auron raps the board with his palm. “They’re people! They have as much right to serve Yevon as anyone else.”

“Fine,” Kinoc sighs. “Maybe you’re right. But that’s only if they _can_ serve Yevon. I hear that if they catch him or his daughter with any machina at all, they’ll be banished from Spira.”

“That’s hardly fair.”

“Why not? They’re forbidden. Traitors have to be punished.”

Ridiculous. “Aren’t they trying to prove they’re not traitors? They should be given the same consideration as anyone else.”

Kinoc raises his brows so high they nearly bite into his helmet. “Are you kidding me? They already _have_ been.”

Auron thinks back to the courtyard, to Lord Braska waiting so long to be found out. To his voice, deep and patient and wary. To the lines of grief on his face, which hadn’t been there eight years ago, and the sad simplicity of his words. To how he almost tested Auron, right there, even as he was trying to help. To his thoughts about serving Yevon, not the Maesters, and the heresy in them that shouldn’t be heresy at all.

“Braska failed us years ago,” Kinoc says, as if what’s done is done. “If he goes to Zanarkand as penance, so be it. That might just work. But until then, he’s still a failure.”

 _Not if I can help it,_ Auron decides, as clear as meditation.

*


	2. Chapter 2

Yuna scrunches her eyes shut and clutches her tiny staff for dear life. She makes the incantation painstakingly, like a song, and sweeps the staff out in an arc so wide that it nearly clips Braska’s nose. It’s a good effort, but not quite magic yet, and Braska applauds and tries his best to keep her smiling.

“That was beautiful,” he says, and reaches out to ruffle her hair. “Keep concentrating just like that. Did you show Sister Gyuri and the others?”

Yuna nods, three times, hard and determined. These past six months, she’s outgrown most of the clothes they brought with them, but the priestesses have already started adding stripes to the hems of her skirts and making her new robes for the winter. Braska’s helping wherever he can, but it’s different now, living off the church. The Maesters have provided enough for him, but not for _them_ , and that is non-negotiable.

Praise be to Yevon that there are still those in Bevelle with a mind to charity. Every week, it seems, some other little girl outgrows a dress, or a chemist has three fourths of a bottle of eye drops to spare, or a merchant loses one bowl from a set and is willing to barter for the other three. Braska and Yuna have made a home of this room, with tapestries in place of windows but bright warm colors everywhere. He’s displayed their books and spheres and their few permitted machina on a shelf he built himself. It looks almost like Remty’s old workshop in the corner, but glows differently, rings less somehow.

“I’ll try again,” Yuna says. She tightens her grip on the staff, enough that her knuckles flash white, makes the same incantation louder this time. She’s still not ready, and it still doesn’t work, but she’s farther along than Braska was at her age.

He smiles, so that when she opens her eyes she knows she’s done nothing wrong. Clearly, she doesn’t--Yuna always thinks it’s never enough--but Braska knows that if he changes the subject, she’ll move on for now. “That’s even better! Are you hungry? Let’s eat something before bedtime.”

“It’s fine,” Yuna says. “I’m not hungry.”

“Are you sure?” He goes to the corner, takes down the camp stove. “We have black rice today.”

“You should eat it,” Yuna says.

“We can share it.”

“But you didn’t have breakfast.”

She’s right, of course. He’s surprised she remembered. “I had tea,” he says. “We can share the rice now, all right?”

Yuna doesn’t protest that. And she does eat a few mouthfuls of rice. But she spends most of the meal watching Braska, making sure he takes two spoonfuls for every one of hers.

*

Auron’s party finally makes Bevelle at sunrise. He’s had worse caravans--only two monks and one chocobo lost to fiends in Macalania, and all of the temple provisions safely ferried--but the fiends of the forest and the mountains have never been his favorites to deal with. They’re as beautiful as the lake, so it stands to reason they’re just as cold and unforgiving.

Kinoc nearly throws his weapon in the air once his feet touch polished stone instead of dirt. “Home sweet home,” he cheers, and pretty soon the rest of the monks in the corps are laughing with him, except the three in the cart overseeing the bodies. “After trips like these, you start to look forward to shifts and posts instead.”

“Speak for yourself,” Auron says.

“Never said I wasn’t.” Kinoc settles his sling over his shoulder, uses his free hand to clap Auron on the back. “Not everyone’s a glory-hound like you.”

“I prefer life in the fields. Doesn’t make me a glory-hound.”

“No, just halfway to a fiend. I swear, Auron, I’ll tell the commanders to leave your body and the summoners to hold off on sending you.”

Auron rolls his eyes. “And I’ll be sure to give you hell once I come back.”

Kinoc laughs. Whatever else he planned on saying is lost in the bustle of crossing into the city, the clamor of the raised gate and the orders shouted down from above. Auron puts himself to work guarding the last of the wagons as it passes through, and holding a perimeter while the last of the passengers on foot trudge along the road. It takes the better part of an hour for the last of the travelers to get in, another to convey the provisions to the temple, and yet another to be debriefed, so by the time Auron and Kinoc return to the temple the sun is already high.

“I don’t know about you,” Kinoc says once they’re in the cloisters, “but I plan to sleep for a week.”

“You do that.” Auron waves him off. “Check in with Itka?”

“Sure. See you later!”

Kinoc peels off to their room, and Auron just keeps walking. He’s tired, certainly, but it’s the kind of body-only fatigue that would just result in him tossing and staring at the ceiling for hours. It’s too bright, too clear a day to hide from, even if the weather is tending toward unseasonable cold.

Without a post, there are only so many places in the temple it’s appropriate for him to go. He drops by the training courtyard, but the initiates are having their group drills right now and he shouldn’t interfere. He could join the chanters, but that doesn’t feel right either. Honestly, after weeks of traveling with the caravan, the last thing he should want is to walk, but his feet keep going until he finds his way down to the canals in the shade of the north bridge.

Maybe it isn’t the walking that his body craves. It might be the solitude. The buzz and chatter of the temple fades, drowned out by the gentle rush of water. Macalania was frozen and still, but the water in Bevelle flows unimpeded and just fast enough to carry sound. There are places beneath the bridges, short pillars and abandoned work sites and half-docks that Auron’s snuck away to more than once. He didn’t think it was a day for that, but he finds himself trailing the water’s edge all the same.

A little girl with golden hair, far too young to be out without a chaperone, dances by the shore. No, wait, she isn’t dancing--she’s practicing, going through motions with a staff. She must be an apprentice, though Auron can’t remember there being a girl so small among them. Over and over, she swings her staff in the same motion, mouths the same words. 

Auron can’t help smiling. He remembers that. Hell, he still does that.

He should leave her to it. But until he came here, no one was minding her at all, and it’s too far from the temple if something should happen to her.

So he waits until she’s gone through the staff form once more, then steps into her line of sight. But no, she doesn’t stop--her eyes are shut, stamped so tight that they look like tiny footprints. Ha, maybe that’s why she’s having so much trouble. She’s trying too hard.

Auron clears his throat. “Miss,” he says, trying not to be too harsh or too loud, “can I help you?”

Clearly he wasn’t quiet enough, since she yelps and jumps back and drops the staff on his foot. It startles him too, not that it hurts, but enough that he backs toward the river, slips on the rocks and--well. Falls in.

Twenty-two years of life, nearly all of them spent training in the martial arts, could not have prepared him for getting startled into the water by a little girl.

He chokes, and she shrieks, and it’s not as if the fall hurt him that much but she’s crying, “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry!” and he can’t exactly tell her he’s fine while he’s coughing up canal water. He grabs onto the stone ledge of the canal as soon as he can see it, catches his breath, and hauls himself up, but by then she’s already burst into tears.

“It’s--” he coughs, starts again. “It’s fine. I’m fine.” He’s soaked to the skin, and freezing, but definitely not hurt. “I promise.”

She buries her face in her hands, doesn’t stop whimpering. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

“I told you, I’m fine!” He wrings out his hair, peels it back from his forehead, and sits down at her level. “See? It’s just water.” Never mind that it’s cold, but it’s nothing he can’t handle. This is more important.

She finally looks up, and he understands why she was hiding her eyes. They’re mismatched, something Auron’s never seen before. One is blue, but the other is bright green, and once she catches him looking she hides her face again.

Well, this isn’t working. He tries something different. “What form were you practicing?”

She mutters something into her hands.

“Hm?”

She barely looks up at all, but does say it again. “...A Cure spell.”

Oh. That makes sense, even if she’s probably ahead of the curve. “All right. Will you show me? If I’m hurt, that’ll help.”

It takes a couple of breaths, big enough that they look like they could burst out of her, but she nods, and kneels to pick up the staff again. Auron sits where he is, tries to guess what’s going wrong.

The girl takes one more big, deep breath, lets it all out. That’s good. Her grip on the staff is a little tight, but that’s probably because it’s heavy for her. She says the words perfectly, as competently as any priest or priestess Auron’s ever heard, and waves the staff in front of her, not too high or too low. Nothing’s _wrong_ , exactly: maybe she’s just too young and doesn’t have the concentration for it yet.

But then he looks at her face, and sure enough, her eyes are closed tight again.

Auron remembers, when he was her age or a little older, the master-at-arms drilling her fingers into Auron’s temples to get him to loosen his jaw. _You can’t take a hit like that,_ she said, _you’ll break your teeth even if someone gets you in the gut. Clear the path._ That part must hold true for the healers as well, “Clear the path.” He didn’t mean to say that aloud, but it’s fine. He’ll go on. “Relax your face. Clear the way to your eyes. That’s where the part of you that wants to heal is, right?” He reaches out, drums his finger once on her forehead. “ Here. Take another deep breath and try again.”

She nods. Of course when she wipes her eyes and shuts them again, they’re still too tight, but Auron taps her on the forehead again to remind her, and after another breath she tries again.

This time, the little staff glows as she waves it, just enough that the puddle of water under Auron reflects its light. He chuckles to himself, tells her, “Look,” and she does.

Her eyes are still puffy from crying, but her smile is one of the sweetest things Auron’s ever seen.

“Thank you!” She bows, makes a sweeping prayer, “Thank you so much! Praise be to Yevon.”

He answers her prayer in kind. “But you know you have to keep working.”

“Yes. Yes, I do, thank you!” She bows again, and by the time she looks up Auron’s gotten to his feet. “And I will. I promise.”

“Good. But right now, you should go back to the temple. Are you staying with the apprentices?”

“No, Byby--Papa,” she corrects, very quickly, “my father lives here too.” She hangs her head again, as if she’s done something very wrong. Auron’s not sure what, but he won’t bring it up.

“I’ll take you to him.” Auron says. “Let’s go.”

She nods, and takes his hand. That’s almost enough to startle Auron into the water again, but she leads the way, and they make their way back to the temple together.

*

Of all the machina he left behind, Braska misses the teakettle most of all. Remty somehow rigged it to heat the water to his chosen temperature in minutes, perfect for whichever kind of tea Braska brought home. Of course she teased him about his indulgence, but tea was really the only one, and for all her jibes she never said that the principles of temperature and time were frivolous. If anything, it was something to share: she may have talked about it in scientific terms, but it was something to share, and Remty would experiment with “wrong” teas just to see if all of Braska’s particularities would hold.

But here, now, he heats his water on a side-board stove, and doesn’t own a thermometer. He still more or less remembers how to judge by the bubbles, but it takes attention and time, and the memories leave him aching. Though that ache might be hunger. He’s not sure.

This water is nearly ready, and Braska measures tea into his bowl. It’s a needle tea from the Thunder Plains, one that will be easy enough to replace if he gets the time to go to a travel agency. He’s saving most of the rarer ones. Perhaps Yuna will grow to like tea as well. He hopes.

The door opens just as he’s pouring. He looks up, “Welcome back, Yuna--”

Oh, my.

“Brother Auron!” Braska can’t help laughing: the young monk looks like he went for an impromptu swim, his uniform plastered to his body and his hair hanging lank, darkened to black. “Are you all right?”

But before Auron can answer, Yuna lets go of his hand, bounds into the room and hugs Braska. “Papa! I did it! I did the spell!”

Of course Braska holds her tight, laughs with her. “That’s wonderful! Did Brother Auron help you?”

She nods against his shoulder. “He did.” And she switches to Al Bhed--she may not even be aware she’s doing it, it happens too quickly for Braska to notice. “But I scared him into the canal,” and then she switches back, “I’m so sorry--”

“It’s really fine,” Auron says, and steps into the room, shuts the door, too quickly to be just polite. “I didn’t know she was your daughter, my lord.”

“And I didn’t know she had made a habit of terrorizing monks! Here,” he passes Auron the bowl of tea, “drink this and warm up, and let me find you a blanket. You might need more than a Cure spell if you catch cold.”

“I don’t want to trouble you--”

“It’s no trouble,” Braska insists, casting about for anything dry and clean enough to spare. He’s about to go for the blanket on his side of the room when he remembers it’s been several days since he had time to wash it, then decides, why not, and takes one of the tapestries off the wall instead. “Here. Please, dry off.”

Auron can’t exactly take the tapestry with a hot bowl of tea in his hands, and Braska doesn’t intend to let him protest, so Braska just sweeps the tapestry out and drapes it over Auron’s shoulders, pulls it tight. Auron staggers forward a little, but accepts his fate, and Braska smiles. “Good. Now, Yuna, why don’t you tell me everything that happened?”

She nods, and takes a moment before she speaks, probably to make sure she’s speaking the right language. Good. She still needs to be careful. And as she explains what happened at the canal, Braska sits down on the cushions and Auron, eventually, follows suit. It’s a sweet story, and Yuna’s clearly taken with Auron and trusts him, and Braska doesn’t blame her in the slightest.

“And he said,” Yuna goes on, “before we came here, that he’s always been here. At Bevelle. Almost since he was born.”

“Is that so?” Braska looks over to Auron and smiles.

Auron’s still looking nothing but awkward and damp, wrapped in the tapestry and still holding on to a full bowl of tea. “It is,” he says, quiet, tense. “I was raised here. My parents were killed by Sin. In the first attacks since the last Calm.”

Braska remembers that attack: he’d been in Bevelle at the time, in training, when Sin had surfaced off the coast for the first time in ten years. Dozens of refugees had come over land, since sea travel was nearly impossible for weeks. Auron must have been carried here then.

Yuna hangs her had. “Sin killed Sysy--Mama--too. I’m sorry.”

It’s clear from the sudden change in his expression that Auron didn’t know. Braska’s frankly surprised as well. But Auron simply offers his condolences, and Braska accepts.

A change of subject is in order, though, and Braska takes it upon himself. “How is the tea?”

Auron hasn’t even tasted it. He almost fumbles the bowl trying to comply, which makes Yuna laugh, but Auron eventually gets the rim to his lips and drinks. “It’s excellent,” he breathes, all steam, “thank you. Did you blend it yourself?”

“No,” Braska says. “I’m only a collector, not a maker.”

“Sometimes Papa does nothing but drink tea,” Yuna supplies, earnest but completely unhelpful. Braska will have to have a talk with her about that too, it seems.

Auron either misses her implication that they’re starving, or is too polite to remark on it, and Braska honestly can’t tell which. “You never struck me as indolent, my lord.”

“Hardly. And please, there’s no need to call me lord. I’m still an acolyte.”

“You’re still my superior here, and there’s no doubt you’ll succeed as a summoner. I’m only addressing you with the respect you deserve.”

It may be just a trick of the light, but Braska could swear Auron’s cheeks tinge red. Perhaps not: he’s still shivering, after all, and the color might only just be returning to his skin.

“You really should get out of your wet clothes,” Braska says. It’s only true.

Auron tenses so sharply that the tapestry falls off his shoulders. “Right,” he says, getting up. “I’ll go back to my rooms and dry off. Thank you for your time. And the tea.” Tea he’s barely touched, that is, but obviously something’s wrong, and Braska can easily guess what.

“I understand.” Braska stands as well. “A word, before you go?”

“Of course.”

Yuna also stands, and bows. “Goodbye, Sir Auron. Thank you for helping me.”

“Any time,” he says, bowing back.

Braska follows him out into the hall. The tapestry hasn’t done much work to dry Auron off: his clothes still hang heavily, but his hair is drier, lighter now, and the end of his ponytail sprays every which way. Once Braska shuts the door and leaves Yuna inside, he turns to Auron, but for all that he seemed in a hurry to go, he’s barely moved away from the door.

“She’s lovely,” Auron says.

“She tries so hard,” Braska agrees. “I know it’s not easy for her, being here.”

“No easier than it is for you.”

“I wish it were.”

Auron darts his eyes at the door, glowers as if he could destroy it. “It’s unacceptable. They can’t treat you this way.”

“It’s more than I deserve,” Braska says.

“You deserve _respect_.” Auron clenches his fist, so tight that water drips down from his cuff. “How can you live like this?”

“This, coming from a monk?”

“It’s one thing to choose the life of an ascetic. I chose it. You’re here to be a summoner, not a penitent!”

“But I am a penitent, Brother Auron. In their eyes, I have to repent before I’m ready to serve.”

“And how long will you let them treat you this way?” Auron’s shoulders shudder, too harsh to be only from the cold. “I own nothing, and live better than you do in there.”

“Yes. Because you’ve done no wrong in the Maesters’ eyes.” Braska smiles. “We’ll be fine.”

Auron shakes his head. “I can’t accept that. Not when I can help.”

Months ago, Braska wondered what it would be like, to be the target of Auron’s focus, to have no way out of his sight. He thought it would be frightening. He was right.

But it’s also exhilarating, and sends a tight coil of heat down to Braska’s core.

“No one can stop you from training,” Auron says, low, private, as if he knows that the walls have ears. “You’ll need to go afield and fight fiends when you become a summoner. So start training now. I’ll hunt with you.”

“Brother Auron--”

“And since I can’t hold property, you can have my share of what we earn.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Braska can’t keep his voice as low as he’d like it to be. “I don’t need your charity.”

“But Yuna does,” Auron says, in a tone that brooks no argument.

Braska sighs, leans against the door. “You don’t need to do this. I don’t want my guilt to rub off on you.”

“My lord, you aren’t guilty of anything.”

Braska laughs, but only once. “You’ll stand for me, then? That’s what this is about?”

Auron takes a moment to gather himself, curls his fists in the hem of his wet tunic. But the fire and pain haven’t left his eyes, and Braska can’t stop staring.

“It’s more than that,” Auron says. “I don’t know all of it. I admit that. But I know that they’re treating you unjustly, and that you’re not the only one suffering for the Maesters’ prejudice. I serve Yevon the same as you do. You’re training to be a summoner. That alone should compel me to help you any way I can. I _want_ to, my lord. It has nothing to do with politics. I want you to succeed. And I want Yuna to be safe and healthy. So come hunting with me. Let me keep you safe while you learn.”

Braska has only been struck speechless two times in his life: when Remty first kissed him, and when Yuna was born.

This time makes three.

Auron growls, “Please. Let me help you.”

There are so many reasons not to. Pride. The future. The safety Auron’s so bent on providing is an illusion. Braska has been on both sides of the Maesters’ grace, and neither side is safe. To accept Auron’s help would only involve him in the tangle of Braska’s life, and that’s not fair to Auron--even dangerous.

But for Braska to have a friend, here, in this place of derision and fear, is worth its weight in danger. Braska couldn’t call himself a summoner if he wasn’t willing to trust his friends to bear the same pain as he.

“Not for free,” Braska says. It’s a last effort. “Please, let me give you something in return.”

Auron laughs, once, brusque, and leans in. “Then teach me Al Bhed,” he says in Braska’s ear.

Braska’s heart tightens and doesn’t let go. “That, I can do.”

*


	3. Chapter 3

Macalania is exactly as Auron left it. So little in Spira ever changes unless Sin comes and destroys it all, but the woods only change in the shadows, imperceptible until you look so close that you can’t see anything else. Out here, on the road from Bevelle, it’s nothing but bright, the sunlight stretching over the water and the path gleaming gold, but the forest is in silhouette, as forbidding as ever.

Auron reins his chocobo to a stop, and Braska follows suit. The birds can wait out here. “Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be, I suppose.” Braska’s had good humor about this all morning, but then, Braska is so confusingly indomitable that Auron should give up on figuring him out. Not that he can. “We’re not taking the chocobos in?”

Auron scoffs. “You try sneaking up on a fiend with a bird that weighs as much as three of you.” But Braska’s smile is infectious and Auron can’t keep his mouth from quirking. “Honestly, the fiends tend to be afraid of chocobos. Or at least to let them be. We lost one last time only because it spooked and its heart stopped.”

Braska accepts that answer, swings out of the saddle and unhooks his staff. “Are we looking for anything in particular? I’ve never fought in Macalania.”

That’s both surprising and not. “Have you been to the temple here?”

“Yes, years ago. But I suppose what you said about the birds holds true. I didn’t see a single fiend from the carriage.”

Auron nods. “You’ll see plenty today, my lord.”

“Brother Auron, you don’t have to--”

“Please.” If Auron lets his voice get too loud, he’ll drive the fiends away, but it has to be said. “Out here, at least, you’re a summoner.”

Braska laughs. “Does that make you my guardian?”

\--The very thought. “I’m not worthy of that,” Auron says, because if he doesn’t say _something_ his skin will melt off from underneath.

“Nonsense.” Braska taps him on the shoulder, presses forward toward the woods. Auron can’t feel his hand through the armor, but the pressure enough was startling. “You said it yourself, you want to protect me. What other worthiness would I care about?”

No amount of meditation could clear the bright flash of possessiveness from Auron’s mind.

Braska looks over his shoulder, shrugs his braid off so that it hangs down his back. “If I’m a summoner out here, you’re my guardian. You can’t exempt yourself from the same standards you’re holding me to-- _Sir_ Auron,” he adds, and his laughter is so bright and rich that Auron can’t hear anything else.

Not even his own voice, even if he knows he’s speaking. His mouth forms words, _my lord_ , and his breath carries them out, but for a moment Auron hears nothing at all.

Braska is beautiful. That, Auron’s known for years, since before he knew that Braska was Braska. That priest from the parade, so proud and steady, hasn’t disappeared: grief and time have aged him, but haven’t taken anything away. He walks with such confidence and stands with such ease, and even after a life of training and self-imposed restrictions Auron’s never known anyone who bears up so well. How can he smile so easily? How can one man shine so much?

Braska heads toward the woods, staff in hand, and Auron will follow him anywhere.

They clear the canopy of the forest, and the temperature plummets, almost instantaneously. Auron rolls back his shoulders adjusts his breath. This late in autumn, the ice extends much further than the bounds of the lake and the spring, creeps up the trunks of the trees like lichen and clouds the moss to a crystalline green. Many of the branches overhead are bare, but they’re clustered so thickly that more shadow breaks through than light. It snowed here when Auron was with the caravan, and some of the same piles remain, hardened with a few days’ thaw, inexorable.

Braska doesn’t seem to notice the cold, pressing ahead along a well-worn forest path into the brush. “So,” Braska says, “what are we looking for?”

“They’ll look for us,” Auron says. He readies his sword, quickens his step so Braska doesn’t have to take point “You said you’re not much of a sparring partner.”

“I was telling the truth. It wasn’t for lack of trying,” he says, with a smile. “I went through just enough training for the master-at-arms to despair of me completely.”

“I doubt that.” Auron casts about for anything lurking in the underbrush, but so far there are only butterflies and stray pyreflies to be seen. “You know enough to know your strength. What arts do you have?”

“Aside from healing and raising? Enough to call the elements.”

Auron nods. It’s as much as he expected of a priest, but less than he’d like. “You’ll need that here, especially fire. Most of the fiends in these forests have grown to take strength from the cold. But you must tell me if you think you can’t cast anymore.”

“Of course. But the same goes for you, Auron. Your strength is just as exhaustible as mine.”

He has a point, but, “It won’t come to that,” Auron says.

“Let us hope,” Braska agrees.

_Hunting is half waiting,_ Maester Gaehanne says, to every fresh batch of initiates itching to go on their first mission. Auron remembers that, and it wasn’t that long ago, but he’s taken it to heart by now. The first cluster of fiends springs on them after ten minutes of silent waiting, a cadre of lizards coming down from the trees. Auron’s able to point them out before they leap into Braska’s path, so Braska pulls back, settles his staff in his hands and gets his bearings. Auron’s faster, gets between the lizard and Braska, sword at the ready.

“I’ll hold their attention!” The first lizard lunges for his throat, and Auron swats it away, brings his sword down on its head as it retreats. “Keep them off of you!”

“Understood!” Just barely in Auron’s lone of sight, Braska composes himself and chants, arcs his staff toward the two lizards in the trees, and sets them ablaze.

It’s not a difficult fight at all, straightforward, clear. Auron’s fought with casters before, and he knows how skilled they can be at evasion. Braska is slower than some but finds his footing quickly, and his concentration never wavers. He throws off three spells in succession before Auron dispatches the first wounded lizard, and a fourth to pick one off one on his own. The last, torn between running and charging, bolts toward Auron and gets in one solid bite to his forearm before Auron flings it into a tree. It explodes into pyreflies at the moment of contact.

Before Auron can so much as say he’s fine, the cool energy of a Cure spell washes over him, fills the wound and hastens the mending of his flesh. He turns back to Braska, whose staff is still aglow. Once the spell is done, Braska smiles, raises one brow. “Are you all right?”

Auron nods. “Save your energy.”

“It’s fine. We can use the traveler’s sphere if we run into trouble.”

Again, he has a point, but Auron would still rather he be cautious.

Before he can object, Braska dusts himself off and observes, “Fire didn’t seem to do as you said.”

“No. The fiends might be adapting.”

Braska smiles. “I’ll try the others, then, if we run into more.”

The next pack ambushes them while they’re still raiding the lizards’ nest. Lighting proves just as ineffective as fire, but water does the job, though Auron’s still much more likely to strike the lizards down. He and Braska fall into a rhythm after that, no matter the enemies they face: Auron goes in first, whittles away at their health, and Braska tests their weaknesses until he knows what he can do best to help.

Hours pass, and the business and pace of the hunt overtakes Auron. It’s as easy as it’s ever been with the caravans, trusting in Braska’s steadiness and skill. With Braska’s healing magic to aid him, Auron can go on longer and keep his focus on the fight, and soon the sun is coming from the west, casting the shadows of the palace and the temple all the way into the treetops.

“We should stop to eat,” Braska says, leaning against a stone cairn by the forest path. “Should we find a settlement?”

Auron nods, agrees. “We should.” They should have hours ago, but this is--well. Almost fun. As much as he hates to admit it, Kinoc is right, and Auron enjoys his time in the field. Perhaps more than is seemly, for a monk. But there’s no heresy in taking pleasure in his calling, and his calling is to defend the worthy from the dangers of the world.

And Braska is worthy.

*

After the Guado converted to the teachings of Yevon, the three ancestral races of Macalania followed suit. Braska was about ten when Maester Jyscal became the first Guado to hold the rank, and he remembers that festival, the races of people he’d never seen before parading in the streets, men and women built like birds with blue or gold skin, playing enormous harps. It turns out that the artisans’ enclave in Macalania is one of theirs, and the converts welcome a training summoner and his young guardian with open arms, or rather, open wings. Braska’s never been here before, but Auron knows his way around, and escorts him to the half-cave that serves as an inn, general store, and town center for the land-bound people or pilgrims coming through. He also takes care of settling their trophies with the innkeeper, while Braska stocks up on food.

Considering how much they earned hunting so far--the hides and hindrances come to nearly three thousand gil--Braska is more than prepared to pay for his meal and provisions for Yuna, but the proprietor, Tatti, laughs and says that those who serve Yevon eat free here, by Maester Jyscal’s decree. Braska still insists on paying for all he buys, and Tatti has a good laugh at him.

“You will pay us with the Calm,” Tatti says, forming the words as best he can around his beak. “Until then, you pay only for what you carry out of this place.”

Braska bows and offers him a prayer. Tatti sweeps out his wings in kind, then excuses himself to deal with the few other patrons.

Perhaps it’s for the best: Auron brings by a tray heavy with at least six bowls of food, sets it on the table in front of Braska and then sits on the opposite side. The two uncovered bowls are a serving each of clear soup with dense seeds and curling greens sunk to the bottom. Braska nods his head in thanks, then picks up his bowl and drinks. It’s a touch too warm to have drunk so fast, but Braska finds he can’t stop.

Auron smirks at him over the rim of his bowl. “Their generosity isn’t unfounded.”

“Just unfamiliar,” Braska laughs, and sets the bowl down.

“Get used to it,” Auron says. There’s humor in his tone, but his eyes are dark and warning. “Just because Bevelle doesn’t give you your due doesn’t mean the rest of the world won’t.”

“It’s not my due.” Braska takes another sip of soup. The warmth is more pleasant, now that his throat’s grown accustomed. “I’m still in training.”

Auron glowers. “Even training is more than most will ever do.”

“I get the feeling we’ll be having this argument a lot.”

Auron’s cheeks color, and he looks down at the food. After a moment, he uncovers another one of the bowls on his side of the tray. It’s a dish of tawny grains too small to be rice, mixed in with slices of red and green fruit that look rather like vine peppers, and strips of pale meat with black edges. Auron passes it across. “This one is yours,” he says. “I must have reversed the tray.”

Braska’s grateful for the change of subject, and accepts the bowl. “You’ve taken an oath against meat?”

“For the past two years.” Auron checks under the cover of another bowl, and, satisfied, switches it to his side of the table. “Since I stopped growing. Maester Gaehanne recommends abstaining for a few years before you decide if it’s necessary.”

“If meat is necessary?”

“No, if abstaining is necessary. Some cut their lives off from everything. Others find they better serve Yevon if they see to the needs of their bodies.”

Ah. Braska takes himself a spoonful of grain. The fruits turn out to be bitter, a good counterpoint to the meat, which probably comes from game. “I thought all monks abided by the same precepts.”

“No more than all priests,” Auron says, with a wry smirk into the steam of his soup.

“Good point.”

Auron takes time to swallow, then sets his bowl down and explains, “We all lead lives of discipline. And it’s expected of all of us to devote our lives to Yevon and keep nothing for ourselves. But we’re warriors. Most of us are more likely to fast periodically than to cut food out entirely. Otherwise we’d never know what we’re abstaining from.”

More out of curiosity than hunger, Braska uncovers the third dish, even if he hasn’t finished the first two. This one smells sweet, and holds a hot fruit compote, dark red mixed berries and shaved nuts. Braska offers it across, “Is this yours?”

Auron uncovers one on the other side, the same fruit dish. “There should be no difference.”

Braska nods, recovers his, and decides to save it for last. It’s been long enough since he’s had anything sweet, half a year at least. “So, does that apply to all of your oaths?”

“Most of them except property,” Auron says.

“Which is why so few monks have had children?”

“More or less. If a monk marries, his spouse holds all property and is responsible for the children. And monks can’t marry each other.”

Braska finds himself asking, “But outside of marriage?” It’s worth knowing: he wouldn’t want to make Auron uncomfortable, since he doesn’t seem to have many friends in the priesthood, and certainly wouldn’t know many widowers.

Auron coughs, harsh, into his fist. “Yes. That oath is--optional,” he finishes, decisively.

“Provisional?”

Shaking his head, Auron busies himself with a long gulp of soup. Clearly, celibacy is a touchy subject.

“I apologize,” Braska says, truly. “I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.”

Auron sets down the empty bowl. There’s still steam on his breath, but no recriminations in his voice. “Thank you.”

It’s Braska’s turn to change the subject, so he does, and leaves it at that. “So, are we heading back after this?”

*

Macalania at sunset is even more beautiful than it is in the morning, Braska thinks: where the ice was once blinding, now it glows with a dim silvery light, tinged orange at the edges. A few lingering pyreflies hover in the darkest parts of the woods, where dead fiends lie, expelled. Braska aches for the power to send them on. A few more months, his trainers say, and his control will be sufficient. _Until then,_ they tell him, _there is only to purify yourself in Yevon’s eyes and repent your heresies._

As if his life, his love, was heresy.

But out here hunting, there is no point in dwelling on such things. Since leaving the settlement, they’ve been encountered fiends twice, another bevy of those lizards and a horrifying chimaera that almost proved too much for Braska’s will. With the possibility of more fiends to face, Braska wills himself to concentrate in silence, to follow Auron through the thickets and learn all he can of the road.

Auron’s well suited to the wild. He might not appreciate hearing it, even if Braska means it entirely as a compliment, but he moves with the same grace as the fiends themselves, lithe and silent until he strikes and the silence explodes into fury. Twice this morning, Braska watched him dispatch an armored creature in a single strike. He’s sure he’ll have occasion to see it again. It’s difficult to make conversation with him, like this: Braska thinks, incongruous as the image seems, of a pendulum waiting to swing.

The path comes to a frozen fork, and one branch opens up into a glistening pool. Pyreflies cluster around the surface of the water, but pass through it without causing a single ripple. Braska stops to take in the sight, puts a hand to his chest: in an already beautiful forest, this place is nearly heartbreaking.

Remty should have been able to see it.

Auron comes to stand beside him. “My lord, are you all right?”

“Yes,” he breathes, “forgive me. It’s beautiful, that’s all.”

Auron nods. “This is where we get the water that fills spheres. The Maesters say that the water here reflects the Farplane, so Yevon permits us to reflect our own memories in kind, while we can still speak.”

Braska’s breath catches in his throat.

Auron comes a step nearer. “Do you need a moment?”

It takes some doing, but Braska nods.

_Here, wait,_ she said, _I have something to help._ Her accent was more pronounced back then, her Spiran stilted but beautiful, and she went to a cabinet in her brother’s home, rummaged through it for a device that looked like a glass box with all the intricacies of Al Bhed lightwork inside. She attached a black visor to it by a short cord. _This is for teaching. It has stories, like your cybranac. Spheres. But these are old stories, old enough that everyone knows them. For children._

_If everyone knows them,_ he asked then, _why are they recorded?_

She looked at him then, amused but afraid, and the spirals in her eyes send a wave of heat down into his heart. _If someday we forget. If someday no children know._

Braska takes another step toward the pool, feels the pyreflies drift and scatter, away from him, deeper into the wild. His toe nudges the surface, like a mere puddle after rain, but the water is so clear that his reflection persists, distorted as if to reject him. He can’t help looking down at himself, there, in the robes of an apprentice summoner, of a church he once forsook, a road he once resolved not to take, and here he is, as soon as she’s gone here he is, taking it --

_Soon,_ he thinks, _I’ll be along soon, I promise._

“Lord Braska!” Auron shouts. “Get back!”

Braska staggers two steps back, nearly trips into a tree. It probably saves his life.

The water bubbles, gathers, and the hovering pyreflies swarm into it, more corporeal than they have any right to be. The mass of clear water hovers several feet above the ground, an enormous sphere, held together only by the will of the fiends.

“What in the name of,” Auron swears, and is cut off when the mass of water launches itself at him, quick as a bullet. Auron raises his sword to block it but the mass is too large, too much of a force to block. He reels back into a tree, holds onto his sword but only just.

“Auron!” Braska prepares his staff, calls the incantation for a Cure spell and wills it toward Auron. The magic is enough to get him back on his feet but the mass of water seems to shift its focus, reaches out tendrils in Braska’s direction and advances on the air.

Auron yells, “No!” and throws himself at the water, slices into it. The gash reforms in an instant, as if he merely traced a pattern in the surface, but the creature turns on Auron immediately. A bolt of lightning, magic from nowhere, blasts out and strikes Auron’s chest, singes his robes.

_Lightning,_ Braska thinks, clearly, but doesn’t have time to do more than wonder how a water fiend has such command of lighting. Braska calls the same to himself, gathers it in his staff and sends it at the fiend--and all it does is bubble and shift and thicken.

Still on his feet, Auron braces himself to attack again, his stance low and threatening. One harsh breath, and he charges again, cuts another swathe into the surface. The creature lashes out with lightning again, and Braska gathers the energy to call water instead. Auron seems to take his time as well, dodging another surge from the water and laying into it with one sure, decisive strike threaded with magic of his own.

The fiend seizes up, shrinks and boils. Well, if it’s weak to water, ironic as that is, Braska will answer it in kind. The magic follows the arc of Braska’s staff again, and a wide arc of water, slaps against the fiend. But this time, the creature is undaunted--and turns its attention on Braska instead, a thick geyser of water that knocks the wind out of him.

Dimly, Braska is aware of Auron shouting. He’d love to respond, he’s fine, or he will be, he just has to get up and see to himself first, but Auron’s certainly been weakened as well. Through the white haze of water and pain, Braska barely makes him out, attacking the fiend again and incurring a spiral of fire in return. First, lighting, then water, then fire? Does this fiend have no weakness at all?

Braska composes himself enough to cast, first healing himself, then Auron. But alternating between the magics of healing and destruction is more difficult than he expected it to be, too difficult to spare the mind for right now. Lightning, then water, then fire. And Auron’s attacks, one after the other, spur the fiend to all manner of magic, and the order doesn’t hold. Braska counters what he can, calls what he needs to. But one moment, lightning drives it away, and the next it does nothing, and Auron bears the brunt of its attention.

“Run,” Auron growls as he tears himself free of a tendril of water. “Go back to the chocobos, my lord! Or the settlement.”

Braska grips his staff tighter. “I will do no such thing, Auron.”

Auron’s attacks are doing next to nothing, and Braska’s magic only seems to work about half the time. And almost as soon as he finds something that damages the water, the next time he uses it it’s nothing at all. There has to be a solution, a pattern--

Braska remembers what Auron said, earlier, when the lizards weren’t weak to fire. _The fiends might be adapting._

“Auron,” Braska shouts, “forgive me! I think I know what to do. Weaken it as much as you can, but slowly.”

Auron nods, grips his sword harshly enough that sweat rolls down the hilt. “You have a plan?”

Braska doesn’t get to say _yes:_ the water gathers and surges toward them both, as if it could drown them in midair. Auron intercepts it, and its counterattack is so sudden that the gash in the water fills with fire in an instant.

_Fire,_ Braska thinks, and calls ice with a sweep of his staff.

It works. The blast of ice sends the water reeling back, almost smashes it into a tree. Auron takes a moment to pry a potion from his belt, but Braska watches the water form into a sphere again, then stretch into a long column. Braska yells, “Auron, now!” and Auron rushes it.

Water, this time. Which means lightning.

Braska loses track of how many times he casts, how many times it lashes out at Auron. But he knows he breaks the pattern three times to see to Auron’s wounds, and once to see to his own. And he knows from his splitting headache and the tears at the corner of his eyes that he can’t keep this up much longer.

And neither can Auron. Neither should Auron. He’s been struck by lightning four times at least, burned, drowned, frozen, the target of more spells than Braska’s landed on the fiend. And still he keeps going. Still he stands and fights. Braska should do at least that much, _must_ do at least that much if he is to make it to Zanarkand when the time comes.

After Braska lands another fire spell on the fiend, the water steams lightly and hangs precipitously over the ground, as if it’s yearning to become a pool again. But Auron, panting with effort, raises his sword again. The tip trails through the pyreflies over the half-frozen earth. “My lord, can you continue?”

“Not for long,” he admits.

It’s hard to see in the chaos of shadows and water, but Auron might be smirking. “That’s not a no,” he says, and throws everything he has into one last brutal strike.

Braska reaches out a hand to stop him, and sees only a second too late that he’s clutching the staff in it. Auron’s sword slashes through the water, a last-ditch attack even stronger than the rest, and Braska has no right to ask this of him, of anyone.

But he already has, hasn’t he. _If I’m a summoner out here, you’re my guardian,_ he said it himself. Guardians protect summoners with their lives. 

If Braska can’t let Auron do this, he has no right to call himself a summoner at all, and never will.

Auron’s cut seals up in the water, and more water spills out of it, rains over his face and bludgeons him to the ground. Braska takes the only moment he’s got to stretch out his staff and call lightning, and blast it toward the fiend with all the strength he has.

Braska remembers, when he was young, watching a hurricane from the temple windows. It wasn’t Sin’s coming, but deadly nonetheless, and while the other apprentices cowered Braska stared over the river, counting the seconds between flash and thunder.

There’s no delay this time. The snap of ozone aerates the fiend completely, leaves only a burst of pyreflies and a gust of steam. Braska clutches his head and falls to his knees, and the water splashes around him, soaks him to the skin. His staff hits ice a moment later, and he finally catches his breath.

Auron lies a few feet away, facedown in the water. Braska prays that the pyreflies hovering over him are the fiend’s, not Auron’s own.

*

_Hands like ice run up and down Auron’s back, so welcome, so good, as sharp as the fire that’s burning him all over. He leans back, reaches back, anything to bring them around front where everything is heat, where even his sweat is too hot for his skin. Someone laughs in his ear, traces cool fingers through his hair and down his face._

_Whorls of light overcome him, and he shuts his eyes, but the haloes sear his vision red and warm. A hand cradling his head lets him down, draws him backward against something hard, solid. Nothing yields but Auron pushes back._

_He falls. There’s nothing to stand on, nothing to hold, and he falls, too fast to be sinking, too safe to land. Air pounds in his ears, faster and louder than his heart, and a voice presses in with it, praying. Braska. Lord Braska._

_Lord Braska, sending him on._

_No, he thinks, not yet, but the intimacy is flooring, almost enough to convince him to go. Auron opens himself to it, his eyes, his soul, but no peace comes, only touch. Hands at his throat, his shoulders, his chest. A brush of lips at his ear. Pressure, heavy and sure, all along his back, and it’s so good, so safe. Auron grasps for it, anchors himself in it, but his hands meet empty air. He turns, or tries, but Braska fixes him in place, speeds the fall and the heat and the pain--_

All at once, he wakes, twists to his side and hacks up all the water in his lungs. It splatters on the ice, bounces back into his face.

“Easy,” Braska says, “Auron, it’s all right. You’ll be all right.” He strokes his hand up Auron’s back, and no, it’s not so cool as it was a moment ago, but warm, gentle. “Forgive me. I cured you, but I didn’t know you’d drowned.”

“It’s,” Auron heaves out more water, fast enough to burn his throat, then tries again, “It’s fine. Thank you. Did we--”

“Yes. It worked. The fiend’s gone.”

Auron sighs, pitches forward on his hands. His elbows nearly buckle. “Are you--”

“Yes, Auron,” Braska laughs. That, that’s as deep as it was, a moment ago, dreaming, dying. “I’m fine.” Auron only sees fog and ice right now, but somehow knows that Braska is smiling. “You really should take more care with yourself.”

“You’re one--” Auron coughs, “--one to talk. My lord.”

Braska comes around him, sits on the ice, pushes Auron’s hair off his face. Braska’s so perfect, so beautiful, even disheveled by battle, his braid unkempt and his face streaked with mud. Yes, he’s smiling. It’s brighter than the forest. His eyes are bluer than spheres, bluer than magic, magic all on their own.

Auron will never be able to meditate this desire away. Never.

He swears to Yevon, this moment, that he will face this test and try.

“When you can stand,” Braska says, completely oblivious, “I think it’s time we went back to the temple.”

“Yes,” Auron agrees, because if he says anything else it might ruin everything.

*


	4. Chapter 4

_“Frelr fyo tet drao ku?”_ Auron tries.

Braska nods. “Better. Round your lips more. The _el_ sound in _frelr_ is almost like _ooh_.”

So he tries again, _“Frelr fyo tet drao ku?”_

_“Mavd,”_ Braska says, and Auron points, left, the way the exercise dictates. Braska laughs, _“Hu, vunkeja sa, E sayhd so mavd,”_ so Auron points right. “Yes. Good.”

_"Dryd fyo?"_ Auron asks.

_“Oac. Dryd fyo, drah ib.”_

Auron points toward the high corner of the room, right and up. _“Yna drao piemtehk y hacd? Uhmo cbetanc lusa drana.”_

_“Ku drana,”_ Braska corrects. “Come and go are irregular, just like in Spiran.”

Auron nods, repeats it slowly, shapes his mouth as carefully as he can. _“Uhmo cbetanc ku drana,”_ he says. “Why spiders?”

“Spiders are more dangerous in the desert,” Braska says, laughing through every word. “Big, too.”

Auron rolls his eyes. “Everything seems bigger in the desert. It makes no sense. How do they survive?”

“By eating the small things.” For a moment, Braska just considers the rest of that answer, and Auron’s grateful for the reprieve, which gives him more time to sort through the language. Not that he’d disparage Braska’s ability to teach--he’s as patient as anything, which is no surprise at all--but Auron is entirely prepared to disparage his own ability to follow language. Memorizing scripture was easy enough, but interpreting it and reciting it back? Never Auron’s strong suit. Furthermore, he doesn’t see the point. At least Braska’s kept their topics of discussion in Al Bhed to the practical so far. Food. Directions. Words like “help” and “please” and “look out!”. The one time Braska tried to tell one of the stories he originally learned from his wife, with thieves and princesses and towers, Auron got completely, embarrassingly lost. He shudders to think what will happen the day Braska tries to bring machina into his education.

By the glimmer of mischief in Braska’s blue eyes, today might be that day.

“Actually,” he says, “you have all the words for that. Try and say it. ‘The spiders survive by eating all the small things’.”

Well, the first part is easy, at least. _“Dra cbetanc,”_ he gets out right away, then takes a little time remembering the word for _survive,_ uses _“meja”_ instead. Now _eating,_ that’s not hard to remember, _“po aydehk,”_ and that just leaves the easy part, _“uid dra csymm drehkc.”_

Braska just stares at him, eyes wide as soup bowls.

Then he bursts out laughing, so hard he feels the need to support his head in his hands, pitched forward on the cushions.

Well, clearly, that wasn’t right.

Braska’s laughter rings through the room, too much for the tapestries and cushions to dampen, and Auron tries to force down the blush creeping up his cheeks and ears. “So glad I amuse you, my lord.”

“No,” Braska tries, laughing too much for that to be in any way true, “no, it’s just--it’s only, I made the same mistake when I first learned. It’s--oh. That _all_ and _out_ sound the same if you aren’t careful. You just--stretched out the _y_ to an _ui_ and--ah. I think you know the rest.”

Honestly, Auron doesn’t, so he tries to play the entire sentence back in his head, _live by eating all the --_ “Oh. Yes, that sounds more like it should. What did I say?” 

Braska keeps laughing. “About the spiders eating _out_ the small things.” 

“Oh.” It makes no sense, but neither does Braska finding it so hilarious. “What would they eat out? Are spider shells thicker in the desert too?” 

Braska stops laughing long enough to stare at Auron, as incredulous as he’d be in Auron just started speaking Ronso. And then he covers his mouth, to keep from laughing even harder. “You don’t know--” 

“Maybe you eat spiders like crab legs,” Auron tries, “if it’s that easy a mistake.” 

“Maybe,” Braska repeats, though he’s laughing too much to say more than that. “Ah, Auron. It’s,” he starts, then picks his words carefully, “an expression.” 

...Oh. “It’s a sex thing, isn’t it.” 

“Yes.” 

Auron rolls his eyes. “Glad to amuse you.” And he can guess, after that. It’s not exactly a difficult thing to line up with what Auron knows of sex. Probably something to do with-- 

\--things he really shouldn’t be thinking about as they pertain to Braska. Or with Braska. Right now. In this room. Doing something that’s already forbidden. 

Which means changing the subject as quickly as possible, or leaving right now, because if this goes on he’ll definitely have to think about it. 

He’s already thinking about it. 

“I should go,” he says, rises and heads for the door. “I’ll work on this before our next hunt. Are you still free in two days?” 

“Yes, but you don’t have to go so soon. It was just one mistake, Auron.” 

“It’s not because you’re teasing me, my lord.” Though-- _no_ , that doesn’t bear thinking about either. “I should eat before my shift.” 

“You could stay for dinner.” 

Auron turns away from the door, it’s only polite. Braska has only just got to his feet, and he looks--well, not disappointed, not quite, there’s still that sheen of humor over his eyes, and hope and maybe Auron could, if he were stronger. If he had more control over himself. If he were surer in his place with Yevon. 

“Maybe next time,” he says, bows, prays. “Praise be to Yevon. See you soon.” 

Braska returns the prayer in kind, but Auron’s already mostly out the door and into the hall. 

*

Summoner Egia returned from her pilgrimage at the beginning of the Calm before last, when High Summoner Hekka defeated Sin, two generations ago. Braska has heard this story a thousand times. Egia had been only miles behind Hekka, at the Ronso village at the base of Mount Gagazet, and none of her guardians had wavered on the journey. There is no shame in Egia’s lot, but by the time the Calm was over, Egia had lost the strength to travel, if not the will to summon, and stayed behind. She must be close on to eighty years old now.

But strength to travel or not, she definitely has the strength to smack Braska upside the head.

“No,” she says, “no, no, no. Your heart’s too fast.”

The bruise on the back of his head certainly says so. Braska can feel it forming under his braid, thick and hot. He laughs, steadies his breath and steels his shoulders, and tries again.

Egia’s voice echoes through the chamber but still manages to stab Braska in the ears. “Welcome it in,” she says. “Welcome death. Slow your blood, show that there is room in you. Death trusts in its like. Absence trusts in absence.”

Braska breathes, twice more, each time slower than the last. He relaxes his eyelids, lets his arms hang at his sides. Another breath that’s barely a breath at all, and Braska steps forward, raises his staff to the level of his chest and begins --

“No!” Egia raps him on the skull again, harder than last time. Braska pitches forward, nearly to the floor. Only his staff keeps him upright “Honestly! You should be beyond this by now.”

Braska casts a quick cure on himself to alleviate the throbbing in his head, then turns to face her. “Forgive me.”

“What does my forgiveness matter? I’m not the trial you’ll face on the road to Sin.” She crosses her arms, clenches her withered brown knuckles. “I’m not the souls you’ll have to send but _can’t_. By the _fayth_ , Braska. This idiocy has to stop.”

For all the time he’s spent calming and training his emotions, Braska can’t keep the flare of indignation down. “Idiocy?”

“What else do you call it when it takes eight months--eight months and counting--of pretending to be a summoner for you to even approach sending? You wave your staff and I feel nothing.”

“I didn’t know you were unsent, Lady Egia.”

She tsks through her teeth. Evidently she appreciates the joke, but only just. “I’d have killed you by now if I was.”

Braska exhales a sigh, maybe the hardest breath he’s taken all morning. And that one breath spurs another, and he fills his lungs, nearly collapses with the relief of air.

Egia shakes her head, but doesn’t sigh. “Braska. A summoner aims to control death. How can you control death if you cling to life?”

_Cling to life,_ she says. If only she’d spent a night, any night, in Braska’s dreams, she’d know how ridiculous that was. “I do have to live, Lady Egia.”

“A summoner only half-lives,” she says. “A summoner has one hand outstretched to the Farplane at all times.” And before Braska can say anything to that, she cuts him off with a swipe of her fingers. “And _not_ to bring anyone back.”

Braska knows exactly what she’s saying: _Bad enough you wed and lost a heretic, now you let her hold you back._

Anger is far too rare an emotion these days. It feels almost strange, settling in Braska’s chest, all through the new empty places. Braska has fasted for three days, slept only four hours these last two nights, seen no one but Egia and Yuna and been barred from the restorative spheres. This must be confirmation that they truly _are_ trying to kill him.

“I have no desire to bring Remty back,” he says, weakly.

“Do not speak her name here.” Egia glowers. Braska deserves that, and knows it, and holds his tongue. “Get out. Come back tomorrow. Or don’t, I don’t care.”

“Let me try again,” Braska pleads.

“Not now. Get out of my sight and get yourself under control before you downright profane Yevon.”

It takes strength Braska doesn’t even have, not yet, to make her a prayer. “Praise be to Him,” he says, and bows, and leaves.

Only when he’s out in the hall does he wipe the tear that’s gathered at the corner of his eye.

*

There is no time in darkness. There is no motion in darkness. There is, was, the rush of a waterfall, but its white noise disappeared long ago. Everything is the hymn of the fayth, a distant mantra that fills Auron’s body and reverberates in every hollow, but he feels nothing. He is nothing. He is weightless, sightless, and one with the world.

His breath is steady, silent. In, with calm and purity. Out, with the words of the hymn. In. Out. In. There is nothing else. Out. There is nothing he needs. In. There is nothing he needs but Yevon.

Out.

In.

Out.

No.

Even in the silence, there is the problem of Braska. It’s been days since Auron’s seen him anywhere. They haven’t hunted since a month ago.

_No._ Breathe. In, counting. Out. Let the waterfall pound on the rocks. He is as implacable, as peaceful, as satisfied as stone.

He pictures, for a moment, the stone of Macalania’s winding paths, frozen and glowing, the water and leaves still. He hears footsteps, Braska beside and behind him. Laughing. Praising him. Calling him his guardian.

The world returns all at once, assaults his ears and skin. The cave is cold, the stone beneath him wet, his robes heavy, his head aching. Auron opens his eyes, and the light of the sun filtered through the waterfall is far too bright. Auron glares into it anyway, lets it hurt him.

This is getting ridiculous. It’s unbecoming. It’s _wrong_.

He pushes himself to stand, leaves the others behind, and walks out of the cave, right through the waterfall. It’s freezing, and it drenches him clean through, but the heat under his skin doesn’t subside.

“Auron!” Maester Gaehanne barks after him, her voice slicing through the drone of the water. “Are you ill?”

Auron honestly has to think about his answer to that. In the time it takes him to think, which is far too long, Maester Gaehanne comes through the waterfall as well, shielding her bald scalp with her arm. Auron bows to her, unwilling to look her in the eyes.

“Walk with me,” she says, and doesn’t wait for him to accept.

He follows her to a carved path in the shadow of the temple, the sort of labyrinth the older monks use to meditate when they can’t hold sitting positions for so long. Gaehanne is not so old yet, perhaps fifty, and walks slowly only so that Auron knows to keep pace.

“You think I didn’t notice,” she says, low, so as not to disturb the others in the labyrinth. “This makes twice in the last week.”

“Forgive me, sir,” Auron says, and keeps his eyes on the hem of her robes and the grass beneath them.

She laughs, once, hard. “Of course. Tell me what’s wrong.”

It is an order from his commanding officer. Auron grits his teeth, and has out with it, or as much of it as he _can_ have out. “I’m finding it more difficult to concentrate.”

“That’s obvious. I’m sure you know why.”

Of course he does. The question is whether _she_ does. She takes a turn left, and Auron follows, a shadow, still looking down. His clothes drag, heavy and wet. Like when he fell into the river, and Braska dried him with a tapestry-- “I can’t--it’s harder to detach. I’m fixated.”

“On?”

“Someone,” Auron says. He hopes that’s enough. The last thing he wants is for this to get back to Braska and make his life more difficult than it already is.

Gaehanne hums, a low considering sound that tells Auron absolutely nothing of what she thinks. She takes another turn in the labyrinth, and he trails obediently behind her, waiting. It’s a brilliantly sunny day, high afternoon, and the heat at the back of Auron’s neck can’t all be embarrassment, can it?

“Auron,” Gaehanne finally says, “how long have you been celibate?”

_Yes,_ Auron decides, _it ‘s mostly embarrassment._ “Twenty-two years, sir,” he says, and hopes the faint humor will distract her from prying about anything more specific.

It seems to work, since Gaehanne laughs, the same single brash laugh as before. “That must be why it was far too easy for you,” she says. “No one’s captured your interest until now.”

It isn’t a question. And she’s right, more or less: aside from what he’s been assured were perfectly normal urges and attractions when he was a teenager, targeted at no one in particular or a passing lovely face. He’s taken care of himself, of course, and enjoyed his privacy, but this is--

“It’s different,” Gaehanne says, “isn’t it.”

And that _is_ a question, even if she phrases it more as truth. “Yes, sir.”

At the next bend in the labyrinth, Gaehanne slows to a stop. Auron follows suit, lets his hands fall to his sides and fists them in his soaked robes.

“Go on,” she says.

It takes three deep breaths for him to gather the words and the will. He raises his eyes, and the temple’s sheen is blinding, but he doesn’t let it daunt him, not yet. “I worry,” he says, “on that person’s behalf. There’s a hard road ahead, a struggle that’s started even now. My road is nothing compared to it. But I’m...” He clears his throat, tries again. “I fear I’m more concerned for another than I am for my standing with Yevon.”

Gaehanne doesn’t lash out at him. She never has, not since he was young and punished corporally for his transgressions. She nods, and Auron hangs his head again, grateful for her patience.

“This person,” she says, carefully, “is also in Yevon’s service?”

“Yes.” There is no point in denying that. It’s truer than Gaehanne knows.

“Then perhaps this person will understand your plight.” Auron looks up, but Gaehanne’s eyes are hard, her brow creased thickly. “Don’t mistake this for permission, Auron. Dwell on your urges to discover their true nature. You’re young, and for all the favor you’ve received from Yevon you’ve known nothing of the world outside His guidance. In all likelihood, neither has the target of your obsession.”

If only she knew.

Gaehanne goes on, casting a glance at the enormous noontide sun, “I do believe that if it’s only a passing desire, you should have the experience, if only to truly know what you forsake on your path to enlightenment. You’d hardly be the first of our order to renounce that oath,” she says, with humor. Auron remembers that Gaehanne was married, for a time, and the two children she had now serve at Kilika with their father. Perhaps she does understand, if she loved her husband. “If it turns out that your urges run to covetousness, then worry. For now, walk, calm down. Take your sessions away from the others for the time being. I can send you with the dispatch to Luca next week if a month on the road would clear your mind.”

“Thank you, sir.” Auron salutes, then prays, more genuinely grateful than he expected to be.

“I appreciate the information,” she says, returning the prayer in kind. “You know that He tests you. Go in prepared.”

“Yes, sir.”

She turns, walks ahead in the labyrinth. Auron waits, long enough to let the distance stretch between them, then turns to take his own slow path.

He steadies his breath and his heart as he walks. In. Out. In.

*

The new statue of High Summoner Urala was installed in the temple’s grand foyer sometime during Braska’s fast. She’s beautiful and strong and young, younger than Braska is now, perhaps Auron’s age, sculpted in armor with a staff that’s nearly a glaive. She was a guardian before she chose the summoner’s path, lost her charge to fiends and took it anew to atone. She brought the Calm that allowed Braska to be born into a world without Sin, to live without threat for the first eight years of his life.

He kneels and prays to her for strength. Surely there were trials she faced that didn’t stand in the temples. Surely there were people who thwarted her pilgrimage, or tried to dissuade her from going at all. All summoners suffer, some more than others.

_One hand outstretched to the Farplane,_ Lady Egia said.

_How rich the irony is,_ Braska thinks, clearly, with a bitter tone that persists even if the words will never be voiced. _They tell me to reach for death, and refuse to let me mourn._

He wonders who sent Remty, when Sin scuttled her ship. Her body never washed ashore.

Braska shakes his head, dismisses the image that comes to it. Maybe Lady Egia is right, and he’s clinging. Maybe he should just focus on this, on Yevon.

He sings the hymn, quietly. He’s always loved how his voice carries in here, how it always seems like the statues sing with him. The first strains echo down to him from the ceiling, and it’s almost as if he is merely a priest again, before life happened.

On the second strain, another voice joins his, close beside him: a younger voice, straining to match Braska’s low pitch, with a gravel edge that speaks to more chanting than singing.

When the prayer is done, Braska turns to Auron and smiles. It’s one of the most welcome sights Braska can think of, after days of isolation and pain, and Auron nods back, the shadow of a smile on his chin. “My lord,” he says. It’s a whisper, just too soft to echo.

“Auron,” Braska breathes. Honestly, his breath is louder than his voice. “I apologize if I’ve worried you.”

He shakes his head. “I understand. I didn’t mean to come here looking for you.” There’s something almost sheepish, ashamed in his countenance, a flicker in his hooded eyes. “I’ve been encouraged to pray elsewhere, while I remain at Bevelle.”

“Are you being sent away?”

“Dispatched to Luca, for a week at least. I’ve been told I need to get away. From you, in fact.”

The chamber is silent, for a moment. The statues tell no tales. “Forgive me,” Braska says. “I never meant you to be guilty by association.”

“My lord, you never--” Auron flinches back at the sound of his own voice, rattling off the ceiling, then composes himself and tries again. “My lord. I’m not being punished.”

Braska can’t stifle a laugh of relief. “Then what?”

Auron looks up at Urala’s statue. In the cool greenish light from the ceiling spheres, his face is drawn, wet at the hairline. Has he slept any better than Braska, these past few nights?

No, there’s no sense in projecting. Braska listens.

“I promise, you’ve done nothing wrong,” Auron says. “It’s my fault. I’m...” He shakes his head, starts again, lower. “My life is in service to Yevon. Anything else is distraction from the Way. I’m dwelling too much on worldly concerns and need time to understand why. That’s all. You’re...at the heart of my worldly concerns.”

Auron’s voice hitches: Braska’s breath breaks.

“It’s impossible to work toward enlightenment when I’m fixated on you, and trying to help you.” Auron shuts his eyes, cringes. “It makes no sense to me either, forgive me--”

“No,” Braska cuts him off, “no. I understand completely.”

Auron turns to him, and the relief in his eyes is plain, even in the shadows of the statues.

“I’ve been having the same trouble with sending,” Braska explains. “I can’t quite cut myself off either.” He shouldn’t mention Remty’s name here, but, “My late wife,” he says. “My teachers say I’m ruminating on her, when I should be focusing on myself. So I understand.”

Auron nods, but looks away. A loose strand of hair hides his eyes, and Braska’s not sure why that strikes him so. “I’ve been advised to focus on the attachment itself for a while, to better understand it. Maybe the same holds true for you.”

“It might,” Braska agrees. “If only they’d give me the space for it.”

There’s something tense in Auron’s smile, but then, there often is. “I’m certain you can carve it out.”

Braska smiles back. “I’ll tell Yuna you’ve gone on a trip.”

“Thank you. It’s true, after all.”

For all that he says he’s at ease with this, Auron’s hands are still curled into fists on his knees. Braska reaches out, covers Auron’s hand, offers what comfort he can.

“I promise,” he says, “I’m not angry with you. And I do understand.”

Auron’s fist doesn’t uncurl. His hand is like stone, roughly surfaced and still. “We should still train, when I return.”

“Of course.”

“Be well, Lord Braska.”

Braska withdraws his hand, but places it down again, just once. It’s almost a pat, he thinks, amused, wonders what Auron would think of it that way. So he tightens his grasp instead, and Auron’s fist pushes against his palm as he stands. Braska lets go. “Be well, Auron.”

Auron turns to the statues, and prays, once, before he leaves. He doesn’t direct it to Braska, only up at Yevon, before he turns and goes.

It is the first time since coming back to Bevelle that Braska’s said goodbye without passing Yevon’s blessings along.

*

_Mama will visit when you dream,_ he says. Yuna’s slept peacefully for hours, on her side of the room, curled up in the nest of cushions she says she prefers to a bed. Braska’s eyes have adjusted to the dark enough for him to see her, tangled in her blanket. She hasn’t stirred for half an hour at least.

Braska should sleep too. He’s permitted to, tonight, and he needs it, but hours of lying back in the dark and waiting have all amounted to nothing. He may have forgotten how. The thought is amusing, but not enough to laugh at.

Tea. Tea is the answer.

Carefully, he sits up, then stands, then tiptoes across the room to the kettle. It’s not quite silent when he turns the burner on, but Yuna doesn’t stir, so Braska settles on to the cushion in the corner that functions more or less as a chair, and pulls the board over.

He only has two or three doses of this blend left, an ananas-weed tisane from Besaid. He’s never been, but Remty recommended it to him back at Home, and he’s had it ever since. He curls the sachet in his fist, raises it to his nose, breathes. It smells like salt and sand and the sweet wildflowers it’s made from, and if Braska could breathe only this and let it be his last--

The kettle whistles, high and ringing. Braska scrambles to shut the burner off, but it’s too late, and Yuna is already crying, cringed into her blankets.

Braska leaves the sachet of tea on the board, gets over to her as fast as he can, “Shh, shh,” he whispers, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Byby?” She nestles into his lap, clings to his waist.

He can’t tell her not to call him that, not now, not like this. He holds her, and tells her, in her mother’s language, _“E’s rana._ I’m here. Don’t worry.”

“Sysy too?”

He shakes his head, holds her close. “No, Yuna. Not anymore.”

She sniffles, murmurs, “I know. But she was. She was here.”

Braska shuts his eyes.

“She was here, we were playing.” Yuna buries her face in Braska’s nightshirt, and he strokes her hair. “I want Sysy so much.”

“I know,” he whispers, “I know. Me too. But it’s okay. It’s okay to miss her.”

Yuna cries, soft and sniffling, not sobbing like she did the first few months. “Why don’t you sleep, she comes when you sleep...”

“I know,” he says again. It’s all he can bring himself to say.

“Tell a story?” she asks, “A Sysy story. Please?”

“Of course.” He pats her, quickly pours himself some tea to let it steep, and comes back to Yuna’s side, lets her curl up on his lap like the cushions. All Al Bhed stories begin with _Nasaspan,_ remember, _“Remember Wetyha the thief?_ ”

She nods.

 _“One day he stole a priestess,”_ Braska recites, remembers from the machina and Remty and learning, years ago, how beautiful stories could be, _“but she asked to be stolen. Isn’t that strange? Why would a priestess ask a thief to steal her away? Couldn’t she run? Couldn’t she fly? But no, the priestess had no idea of adventure, and when Wetyha came to her temple to steal a beautiful treasure, she asked him to steal her instead._

 _“But let’s remember earlier,”_ he goes on. He’s out of practice, but the words do come to him, like sight in darkness. _“Let’s remember that Wetyha was quick as a cactuar, smart as a monkey, and could steal gold from dragons. He could hide in plain sight, and he could pluck the whiskers off a couerl and run. Of course we all believe this now, but in Wetyha’s time, he had to prove himself over and over again. So when Wetyha heard of a beautiful necklace worn by the daughter of a Maester, who was so removed from the world that she spent her days in a tower, he knew he had to steal it._

_And such a necklace it was! It was brighter than the sun, but the color of the moon, a giant stone on a chain of purest silver. It was so old that no one remembered who had owned it first, and some say that it shone with the memories of every person who ever wore it._

_“So Wetyha snuck into the palace during a grand festival. How did he do this? How did he sneak?”_ When Braska breaks for a sip of tea, he smoothes a lock of Yuna’s hair off her neck. She’s still awake, and she smiles a little, blearily.

“He snuck as a player,” she yawns. “He played the sword.”

Braska smiles. “Yes. _He snuck in as a player. He played a swordsman, and dazzled the people of the temple with his skill! But all the while, he was searching for the necklace, and the moment to steal it, but he could not find anything so grand. He found earrings, and bracelets, and belts, and crowns, but no necklace._

_“But later that night, when Wetyha despaired of finding the necklace, he left the festival and thought: if this daughter of a Maester is so devout that she does not leave her tower, well then, I shall climb it! And how did he climb?”_

Braska waits a moment, but Yuna is awake enough to join him for the next line, _”One stone at a time.”_

“That’s right,” he says, _“One stone at a time.”_

It might be the steam from the tea or the kettle, or the stuff of sleep in the corner of his eye, but Braska may be crying. He wipes his face with his sleeve, careful not to let any tears fall on Yuna, careful not to wake her.

 _“One stone at a time, he climbed,”_ the story goes, _“but halfway up, he saw a window, and a priestess running. He tried to evade her sight, but they crashed together, and nearly fell out together! But no, he was quick as a cactuar, and held fast to the stone. And the priestess? What did she say?”_

Yuna snores gently.

Braska smiles, and takes a long sip of tea, and settles in. He can sleep here, like this. He thinks. He hopes.

He says, more to himself than to Yuna now, _“She said: if you are a thief, steal me, please! For how else will I see the world outside this tower?”_

*


	5. Chapter 5

_Somehow, this waterfall is warm. The rocks are hot to the touch, and the river above them is steaming as it coils into rapids and pools and winds, down past the horizon. Auron basks in it, wades through it waist-deep, unencumbered by clothes. When he gets to the falls and turns his face up into the plunge, he parts his lips, lets it in. Simple pleasure, he thinks, with no shame, no harm, no attachment. He drinks, rakes his hands through his hair to peel it off his face, arches his back as all tension escapes his shoulders._

_Water flows down his skin, leaves only heat behind. Auron trails his fingers down his face, settles his palms at the back of his neck. He can feel his breath in his hands. He doesn’t question it, not here. Not when it feels this good._

_And somehow he can breathe when the taste on his tongue thickens from water to sweat. The water kisses him, a pulse of lips and a swirl of tongue, and Auron opens to it, drinks it down. Braska laughs, so beautiful and strong, and Auron opens his eyes, sees through the curtain of water to the form on the other side._

_It’s been Braska all along, of course. Auron doesn’t question that either._

_He gets to his knees, follows the trail of the water down Braska’s bare hips--_

\--and wakes on a pallet at a travel agency, as rain blasts the window like hail. In spite of the chill, he’s sweat through his blanket. And if he doesn’t calm his body and move his hand immediately, he might have some other apologies to make to the proprietor. 

He’d curse, if he were alone in the room. But no, he’s not the only traveler hosteling here, and he has no desire to wake any of the others in his current state.

While the image still haunts him, he meditates on it as best he can. All sex, he thinks. All carnality. It’s almost a relief. If that’s all he’s concerned with, then maybe he’ll be able to return to Bevelle with a calmer heart.

It’s not the first such dream he’s had on this journey. Far from. The ship from Bevelle to Djose took three days, and while the journey was peaceful, Auron was not. There weren’t many passengers on this vessel, so he meditated on the deck, and his hammock was too close to the chocobo wheels, so he kept out of the hold and listened to the rush of the waves beneath the ship, breathed the ocean air. The first few times, it worked. The instant he let his guard down, not so much.

At the very least, he’s figured out that Braska’s absence does absolutely nothing. Especially at night.

Dreams, he knows, are not the realm of meditation. Some of the clergy claim the gift of prophecy, but Auron’s never put much stock in his own dreams. Maester Gaehanne says that they’re advisory, cautionary, indicative of what most troubles your waking world. The same way that stilling your body can isolate the causes of its strains and strifes, stilling the mind releases all its tension.

_Well,_ Auron thinks, for the thousandth time, _that’s obvious._

If it weren’t raining, he’d go outside to cool down. But these are his only clothes, and he has to be on the road at dawn. He could take another ship, he thinks. Would that be easier? No, the question he should be asking is whether that would be effective. A chocobo could get him to Luca just as fast.

He pictures Braska’s hips canting, when they rode off to hunt.

_No._ That’s a firm decision. _I’ll sail._

*

Not that he would have had a choice in the first place: he’ll walk. Due to a particular seasonal menace that targets the birds, the Crusaders permit chocobos For Patrol Rounds Only. His credentials with the monks aren’t enough to change the prescript, and besides, the chocobo squadron captain says, there have been reports of an Al Bhed thief masquerading as a clergyman, and he’s _really very sorry, but it’s getting easier for them to forge passports ever since that priest defected._

Auron’s departure is delayed by half an hour of (for lack of a better term) heated debate on the subject of fraternization with the Al Bhed, which he is certain will come back to haunt him when he returns to Bevelle. 

The next ship departs in three days.

Fine. He’ll walk.

He consoles himself with slaying fiends on the road. Two encounters with the elemental spirits that haunt the Highroad later, he misses Braska’s magic. He has plenty of potions with him, but fighting alone does take its toll, and by the time he makes the next traveler’s sphere five hours later he nearly keels over.

If he dreams, he doesn’t remember it.

He wakes under a brilliant sky, the thickly clustered stars of the open fields. Without even a campfire, the road is dark and empty, but the moons hang unaligned and white, the larger one full, the smaller in crescent, so close it seems they could touch. Auron knows they orbit each other as they orbit the earth, and they’ll be in eclipse soon, but for now they merely greet one another in the heavens, framed by webs of glittering stars.

Even the moons are not alone. On earth, on the Highroad, Auron is, but the moons are not alone. They circle each other, keep each other aloft and in balance, and together brighten the night of the earth. And some of the stars are distant double suns, affixed in each other’s orbit, and they in turn guide planets of their own.

A pang of anger, resentment, _covetousness_ , curls low in Auron’s chest.

He lays back in the dust of the road. Meditation comes on like sleep, imperceptible, and he lets his mind wander among the stars.

*

_Braska straddles Auron’s hips and takes his pleasure. There’s no question about that, not the way he gasps, not the way he begs. He rides, slow, tight, and Auron is paralyzed with want, for this, for more. Braska has no shame. His body arches, his hands tent to claws on Auron’s shoulders. “Please,” he chokes, “please, Auron--”_

_“Yours,” rakes through Auron’s throat, too true to stop. “Yours. All of me is yours.”_

_It’s blasphemy, it’s worship, but when Braska smiles and chokes back a moan none of that matters at all. Something in him heats and that fire races through Auron, up his spine to the base of his brain, and he grabs Braska’s hips, forces him down. Still. Where he wants. Where Braska wants, too, it seems, since his pleading only gets louder._

_If that’s what he wants, Auron will give him everything. He shoves Braska back, braces himself atop him and drives down, over and over, sheathes himself in that fire and want._

_It’s not enough to be his._

_“Mine,” he growls into the hollow of Braska’s throat, “you’re mine--”_

\--and rams his head into the bedpost.

Of course it hurts, or it will, but for now it’s mostly shock, and he clutches his forehead. His hair is a sweaty mess. So is the pillow. So, frankly, are the blankets, and everything Auron can feel is sore, starchy, uncomfortable. He’s in Luca, in a hostel, and at least he’s alone in this room because it’s not blitzball season but that is not the consolation that matters right now. Consolation doesn’t matter right now at all. Fixing this does.

He gets out of bed, glances out the window. A storey below, the streets are just starting to wake up. The sun is an intimation on the horizon, and only a ribbon of pale sky peeks through the alleys. Back in Bevelle, he would be waking soon for morning devotions. There is no temple in Luca, but the Crusaders pray at the docks. He could go there. He _will_ go there. And he’ll go there now, because if he lies back down this will only get worse.

He cleans himself off cursorily and quickly, puts his pants and shoes on, and gathers up the sheets to drop into the laundry where they will hopefully elicit no comment. And that should be enough, but no, something is still buzzing under his skin, and persists when he leaves the hostel and takes to the streets.

The sun rises, inch by inch, as he makes his way to the docks. Tradesmen are awake, baking, setting up their stands. The world moves, the way it always does outside of Bevelle’s walls, but where Bevelle is a river in perpetuity Luca is more like a shore, swelling with the seasons. It ebbs in the winter, down to its bones, to the people who live here and always live here. Auron’s been here enough to know the differences, but it’s never felt so lonely as it does now.

And then there’s the ocean, stretching out toward the west. The docks only go so far, and the long shadows of the city stretch even farther onto the waves, like an enormous dark hand beckoning out to the sea. Sailors go about their work, and yes, some Crusaders are here, praying together on a far off dock. Auron could join them.

He waves to the sailors, to show them he’s of sound mind, and dives in.

The shock of cold is exactly what he deserves right now, and the ocean provides it, soundly and unambiguously. He’s not quite on the level of blitzers when it comes to breathing underwater, but a surface swim in the ocean is within the bounds of his skill, and fights the current just enough to get clear of the docks and tread in the shadows of the city. He takes as deep a breath as he can and submerges his head, literally drowns out the noise in his ears to focus on the chaos in his mind. Meditation is meditation and prayer is prayer, and Auron lets this be akin to both, releasing himself from his body, even from the gravity of the earth, to let his thoughts fly elsewhere.

_Why this,_ he thinks, _Oh Yevon, why this, why now?_

It’s not only about Braska. That much is immediately clear. If it were, he’d feel much more comfortable with the prospect of having _done_ with it all.

_You spared me and saved me. You destroyed my world, so now I serve You in Yours. I have never known any life but the one You gave me and have done my utmost to serve You well. I overcome my anger on Your behalf. I take no pleasure for myself that I may serve at Yours, with all my thoughts and my industry. For all my life, it has been this way, and I would have no other._

The chill of the water is gone, and a pang of _wrongness_ remains.

What he wants is another life, then. The currents shove against his body, tighten around him, hold him as if in ice or stone, and he opens his eyes to the blackness of the water. He’ll need air soon, but not yet, not now, not until this business is done.

_What life did You spare me for,_ he prays, _if not for Yours?_

No answer comes in the darkness, and the urge to survive forces Auron upward. He breaches the surface of the waves, stares up at the last traces of night on the horizon as morning comes. It is dark in the distance, beyond the reach of Luca’s great shadow.

No. No, that shadow on the horizon is not the night. It’s Sin. Pyreflies swirl in the distance, dense as living stars, and its scales rise forth from the froth, towering spines, a mountain emerging from the ocean ready to destroy all other land. Auron’s seen Sin only once before, and the memory freezes him as much as the reality.

_Well,_ he thinks, still half in prayer, _that’s definitely a sign._

He yells to the Crusaders and the sailors, “Sound the alarm! Sin!” and everything after that is war.

*

Sin’s scales are infinite. No matter how many Auron cuts down in the street, another shoots out to replace it, hissing and spitting through the air. Thousands scuttle like crabs through the streets, climb the city walls, swell in clusters like maggots escaping a wound. Auron’s not the only one holding the line against it, but it’s still a thin line.

Every time a Crusader falls, only Sin rises up to take that place. There had been a hundred or so praying on the docks this morning. They’re down to dozens now. With no temple, Auron’s one of a few warrior monks passing through. No summoners, no guardians, to Auron’s knowledge, and he’s not about to wrack his memory while he’s fending off an eldritch menace the size of a city.

He cuts one scale down, splits its carapace into pyreflies. A brace more notices, screeches all at once, and half a dozen blast toward him. Too many to dodge, so he hefts his sword to block, and two pelt against it but one takes him in the knee, another in the gut. They have claws, crustacean legs as long as hands, and if they latch on it’s the same death that so many have already faced today. Auron lets go of the sword with one hand, swats the one he can reach away and tries to shake off the one on his leg, but there are more coming, so many more, and he can barely grab his sword again before the next set flies in.

Down the street, another Crusader lets out a gurgling scream and dies. The Sin scales descend on the corpse like eager carrion fiends. At least the ones nearest Auron are distracted by the din, turn their backs and lose their lives for it, and Auron breaks through for the next set.

Something has to be done. He could die here. So many already have. It would be a credit to his order and Yevon’s service, and the end of a life well lived.

But there’s more to it. More _of_ it.

“Not now,” he growls at the next scale that tries to get in his way. He crushes it in a single swipe. There are more, but he tells them the same.

Minutes or hours pass. The cries of the fallen blend in with the screeching of the fiends. He loses count, and time, and strength, and everything but anger.

A cry, louder and higher than all the rest, shakes the city walls.

Auron can’t prevent himself from looking up in fear. Is Sin airborne now? No, the shadow is smaller, but only just, like a bird or a dragon with its wigs spread wide, and the glint of a golden wheel--

*

Egia thrusts her staff into the air, sharply enough that Braska fears for a moment that she’ll do herself injury. Sin is in sight, but the bargemen won’t bring them any closer, and Sin is monstrous, with all of Luca in its shadow.

Until now, at least.

Egia’s aeon bursts through the sky, tears a hole in the clouds with a beam of blinding light. Braska doesn’t dare shield his eyes. It’s a dragon, all blacks and golds and rich purples, with massive arms and wings as big as the barge, and it flashes toward Luca at Egia’s silent command.

“Watch, Braska,” she says, as smug as she deserves to be. “This is what you’re _supposed_ to do.”

The aeon soars into the clouds, then sweeps down, all claws and wings and teeth. It tears into Sin’s hide, and Sin heaves and roars. Braska grips the railing to brace against the waves, but Egia only holds her staff, calls the aeon to attack again. And Sin takes notice, for all the damage its already done, to Luca, to the coast.

Braska stands in awe. Sin chases the aeon like a child would chase a butterfly, lumbering through the water, deeper with every swing of Egia’s staff or flash of magic from the aeon’s jaw. Braska has never felt more powerless, never been more certain that there is something he _should_ do while so many suffer and so many strive.

“You feel it.” Egia laughs, bitter and low. “It’s about time. Don’t worry, there’s still something you can do. Perhaps,” she adds, a goading afterthought.

A hole in Sin spills forth with pyreflies, and it roars, louder than the waves.

“Send them,” she says. As if it’s that easy.

But whether it’s easy or not, Braska lets go of the rail. The barge pitches, but Braska doesn’t falter, and on the crest of the next big wave he walks out, onto the water.

He thinks, for a moment, that even if this doesn’t work--if he drowns, here--he won’t die alone.

But he doesn’t sink. Only the hem of his robe drags through the wake of the barge, and his feet touch living water but hold him aloft. He stretches his staff out to the side, and prays, and drowns out the roar of the fiends and the engine.

_Go,_ he tells the thousands dead. _Go where I cannot._

They listen.

*

Something ripples through the Sin scales, sets them twittering on the cobblestones. But they don’t attack, don’t even seem to pay Auron any heed. The weakest collapse, the strongest press toward the ocean, and they barely react when Auron cuts one down, then another. The Crusaders in the road are just as confused, but clearly there’s cause for alarm, and whatever’s in the sky is something Sin considers a threat.

Hope surges in Auron’s heart, enough to sear his breath. He hacks his way through the retreating scales to get to the nearest high ground, an overturned food cart, and from there it’s not much of a jump to the nearest toppled awning. He climbs the building, tracks through the swarm toward the ocean.

Of course he sees the aeon first, a magnificent dragon, wheeling through the clouds to batter Sin’s hide. Sin roars, but the aeon is nearly as loud, and the tearing waves roar and rumble beneath them.

And there, by a barge not to far from the shore, is a great wave, still like a mountain, and Braska dances.

Auron nearly drops his sword onto the rooftop. Pyreflies pour out of Sin in a whirlpool, thicker than even the moonflow or the Farplane trails in Macalania. They glow on the water, but pass through the waves and Sin’s wake, spill out of its wounds and let the water press on as if Sin doesn’t bleed at all. But Braska dances, slow and elegant, stretching his staff over the water and calling the pyreflies. They lift him, bear him on a column and surge around him like a storm, and he is the calm of the eye.

The violence of the aeon and Sin rushes deeper out to sea, but Braska pulls the pyreflies toward him with all the peace and ease of meditation. The spiral of light thins, follows the steady arc of his staff, threads through his braid as it whips like dark water at his back. The fight is almost forgotten, and grief tugs at Auron’s heart for all the fallen now under the sweep of Braska’s spell. One last whirl and they go where he shows them, off toward the heavens and the Farplane, and Auron would go too if Braska gave the word.

When next Auron looks at the ocean, Sin is gone, though the coast and docks are in tatters, and dozens, even hundreds of dead lie among the ruin. But Auron knows that, with Braska here, the dead will know where to go, and the living will know what more they can do.

_Praise be to Yevon,_ Auron says in his heart, _for showing me my Way._

*

Once ashore, Egia greets the survivors. Braska hangs back, but those who can stand bow to him all the same. Egia introduces him as her apprentice. There might even be a hint of pride underneath her grudging tone, but the fayth still hum in Braska’s ears, and he can’t spare the mind to hunt for praise. Praise doesn’t matter.

He knows how many died today. He felt their souls pass through him, every single one, felt all the hollow places in his bones fill with the presence of hundreds in turn. He heard the song of the aeon as it soared, a clear child’s voice calling to Yevon and to Braska, to anyone. And he knows that he can call those dead to him, their memories, their strength, even their wrath.

With their power, he can destroy Sin. And he will.

He wanders off the remains of the docks toward the city, looks for more he can do: any people left unsent, any fiends to cast down. The blitzball stadium is scarred but standing, the shipwrights’ row is half rubble, and the sphere hall is a center of anger and screaming and blame. Crusaders have fallen on every street, their corpses picked at by the scales and spawn. Braska lifts his staff, sees to their passing, guides them away from their bodies, away from this place. It’s easier to dance on land, now that he knows he can dance on water, so he does, lets his body be the conduit to peace.

Someone is staring, a heavy, almost hungry persistence at the back of Braska’s neck. It doesn’t feel the same as the awe and attention of the survivors on the docks, and a chill crawls down his back as he turns--

\--the pools into warmth and relief in his chest. “Auron.”

Auron’s the worse for wear, tired and pained, bleeding from a cut on his forehead and more battered than he’s been on any of their hunts. His clothing is down to rags, and his armor is gone if he ever put it on to begin with. When the warrior monks called Egia and Braska to report Sin’s landing, they said it had attacked at dawn. It’s been half a day. Did Auron even have time to prepare to fight? And he held out so long, survived with the last...

Braska’s first instinct should be to heal him. Instead, he rushes forward, embraces him and holds him close, wounds and all. “Auron. Forgive me.”

“Forgive you?” he stammers. Braska must have trapped his arms, since he’s not holding back and he’s gone stiff and tense. “My lord--”

“For being so late,” Braska whispers. “Or for getting you sent here, I’m not certain.”

Auron’s hands tremble, just enough for Braska to feel, awkward near Braska’s lower back. So Braska lets go, since Auron’s clearly uncomfortable, and furthermore calls a healing spell to see to the worst of Auron’s condition. Magic washes over Auron, and while it does nothing for the grime or his wary expression, his next few breaths are less labored and his stance seems stronger. “My lord,” he says again. “How are you here?”

“The fastest ship we could find. The Crusaders were on alert for three days. They sent word to the temples since there’s none in Luca,” Braska explains. “I thought you traveled here with them.”

Auron sighs, shakes his head. “I should have known. They tried to keep me off the road. But how did they get the news to Bevelle?”

“I’m not certain, but I’m glad they did.” The Al Bhed have machina that allow them to communicate across long distances, but Braska’s never seen one in Spira. He’s sure the Maesters know about it, considering the war, but they’re certainly not permitted on hallowed ground if they’re forbidden in the rest of the world.

“So am I,” Auron says. “Are you--when you did the sending, were you hurt?”

“No. I wish I could have done more.”

Auron hisses out a quick breath, disbelief plain in the knot of his eyebrows. “My lord, what you did was amazing. I saw it myself. You cleared the fiends out of the streets like a piper.”

“Did I truly?”

“Never doubt your power,” Auron says, “please, my lord. Never doubt what you’re capable of.” He looks up at Braska with such force, such passion, that Braska almost takes a step back, onto the soaked hem of his robes. “You’ll defeat Sin. As long as you don’t let anyone stop you, you’ll make it to Zanarkand. I swear it.”

Braska was already smiling, but now he’s not sure he’ll ever stop. “Praise be to Yevon,” he says, “that I have a friend like you to guard me.”

*

Auron reports to Maester Gaehanne as soon as the barge lets him off. He doesn’t run through the temple halls, but he doesn’t stop for what few people greet him. Even Kinoc, at his post by Maester Mika’s door, only gets a nod and a “Yes I’m alive, later, forgive me.” Auron knocks on Maester Gaehanne’s door only twice and is permitted in immediately.

“Good,” Gaehanne says, “you made it. Your report?”

“Your sphere was delivered to the mayor of Luca two days ago, within a week of the timetable,” Auron says, gets this out of the way. “I was awaiting her reply when Sin attacked. I was one of the first to respond and fought with the Crusaders until Lady Egia and her apprentice,” he refrains from mentioning Braska’s name, he decided back on the barge not to, “arrived and drove Sin off. The mayor lost her life in the attack and her assistant composed the reply,” he finishes, and hands the sphere over.

Gaehanne takes the sphere and sets it on the nearest shelf. “Good work. Were you injured?”

“Not substantially, sir.”

She hums, considerately. “And the rest?”

This answer, Auron’s also planned, last night lying awake on the barge. “Sir. This was my first time facing Sin as an adult. I wish that Yevon had not given me so costly a test, but the solution is as enormous as the problem. I know now that I have been born to remove Sin’s menace from Spira. Anything else I want is subordinate to that.”

“And it’s cleared your mind?”

He expected her to ask that, too, but the response he planned doesn’t come as easily. “Not entirely,” he admits. “But I know what I should do, the next time it clouds.”

“And that is?”

He remembers Braska dancing on the water, the storm of death and peace around him. “Remember who I serve and what He compels me to do.”

Gaehanne very nearly smiles, just a satisfied lightening of her jaw. “Very good, Auron. And especially good of you, to persevere in the face of Sin. I’m pleasantly surprised.”

“Sir.”

“Now that you’ve returned, I’d like you to help instill that perseverance in the initiates,” she says. “You start after morning devotions tomorrow. Report to me once you’ve eaten and I’ll select your subordinates.”

\--and that, he hadn’t expected at all. He responds, “Yes, sir,” but can’t keep the surprise out of his voice.

And Gaehanne catches that, evidently. She raises her eyebrow, leans a touch forward. “Auron. There are some things that can’t be taught. Perhaps your determination isn’t one of them, but I can certainly teach you to use that will of yours to command respect. You start tomorrow. Any further questions?”

For a moment, Auron thinks, _Yes, a thousand._ But they’re all answered just as quickly, in the back of his mind, when he sees the chance he has been given.

He’ll serve here, because it’s who he is and how he can best give his life to Yevon. But if he takes this command post now, he’ll be even better equipped when Braska finishes his training. He could even treat Braska’s pilgrimage as a military exercise, like the guardians of High Summoner Yocun, hundreds of years ago. They were all monks, like him. They saw their summoner to Zanarkand, just like he will, without profaning Yevon or betraying their hearts.

“No, sir,” he says, and bows to offer himself in prayer.

*


	6. Chapter 6

**THREE YEARS LATER**

Hakan held the position of master-at-arms and second-in-command for fifteen years at least. Auron remembers the day he ascended to the post, the same day that Maester Gaehanne was promoted. She said she still had much to learn and wanted her own teacher to continue advising her, and that was that. But Hakan was over sixty that long ago, has lived through the Calms of four High Summoners, has faced Sin a dozen times and survived, and has accepted the infirmity and deafness that comes with age. He retires tonight, to enter seclusion in Djose Temple and pray in comfort until the end of his days.

It’s as close as the warrior monks get to truly celebrating. There is music that isn’t chant, and food that isn’t portioned, wine for those who have not forsworn it, and a long night of stories of Hakan’s foibles.

Gaehanne laughs and goes on, ending her tale, “And he threw me a bundle of at least ten swords, all at once. I won’t say I caught it, but it did knock the wind out of me and I _warked_ like a chocobo until I could breathe again!” 

Everyone laughs, Auron included: the image of Gaehanne as an initiate is funny enough on its own, but he can definitely imagine her warking.

“Everyone called me Chocobo for years! That’s why I shaved my head.” She drinks, a long pull of tea, then turns to Hakan on the dais, in his place of honor for the last time. “So we all have you to thank for that.”

Hakan smiles. He’s missing most of his teeth, but it’s a proud grin all the same.

While everyone else is still applauding and laughing, Kinoc leans over to Auron and whispers, “I hear the Maesters have already chosen his replacement.”

“I thought it was Maester Gaehanne’s choice.”

“It’s supposed to be,” Kinoc says. “But the Maesters want it to be someone from the priesthood.”

“That’s nonsense. Where did you hear it?”

Kinoc smirks. “Around,” he says. “You really should keep more of a lookout.”

Auron shakes his head, swirls his tea around in its cup. He has no idea what blend this is, but it’s pleasant. Braska would know. He’ll ask later. “Politics shouldn’t matter.”

“Well, obviously they do.” Kinoc shrugs.

“And they _shouldn’t._ ”

“You have to live here, Auron.”

Celebration or not, Auron can’t help glaring. “We all have to live in Spira.”

Kinoc has probably dealt with more of Auron’s glares than anyone in the world, but this time, he just raises his eyebrows. “I was talking about Bevelle. Not everything is about the whole world, Auron. Sometimes you have to take care of yourself.”

On the one hand, Kinoc is completely wrong, downright blasphemous. Of course everything matters. Of course the priority should always be the world, and the future, and hope and safety. And to say that he needs to put himself and his standing before that is so completely out of line, if he brought it up with Maester Gaehanne Kinoc would face reprimand immediately.

But years ago, when Auron was struggling with his own attachments to this coil, hadn’t Maester Gaehanne said that he needed to turn his focus inward, needed to understand himself before he even touched on oneness and enlightenment and saving the world. 

“It’s not the same,” Auron says, as much to himself as to Kinoc. “Playing politics isn’t taking care of myself.”

Kinoc rolls his eyes, takes a long drink. Wine, Auron notices, not tea. “It’s not playing. Not everyone can run off into the woods like you. Some of us actually have to rely on other people to get what we need.”

“We have everything we need, Kinoc.”

At least Kinoc lowers his voice before he asks, “Do we really?”

Auron’s not sure what hits him first, the flash of indignation or the image of Braska and Yuna, watching a sphere together in their windowless room, cushions piled high, tea steeping on the board. Braska looks up, smiles, welcomes Auron in but not home--

“Yes,” Auron says, and it shouldn’t feel like a lie. “Yes, we do.”

*

The corpse lies on the table, waiting to be bound and wrapped for the funeral. She was a lay worker in the temple, a young mother who took sick months ago and never recovered, and when asked said that she would gladly have her body serve Braska’s training. She died this morning, surrounded by her children. There should be no reason but curiosity for the spirit to stay behind, and sure enough, here she is.

Braska stands a length away, regards her with the respectful distance she deserves and requires. The lines of her stressful life show on her face, but faded, an afterthought to the peace of death.

If Braska was ever jealous, he isn’t now. He feels only the shadow of peace, and it’s her peace, not his.

“Call them to you,” Lady Egia says, and by now that’s hardly a task. Braska raises his staff and steps into the dance, draws the pyreflies to him. They gather about his head like haloes of dizziness, trailing ribbons of light that he’s used to by now. “What do you see?”

A pyrefly passes through him, drifts into his back and he holds it in his chest, as if it were his own soul. The woman’s memories are hazy, as memories always are, but Braska gives voice to what he can. “Regret,” he says, because that feeling is always clear. “She’s reaching off the bed, telling someone not to go.”

In the corner of his eye, for one moment in the dance, Egia nods. “Go on.”

“A priest,” he says. He knows those robes. They were the same Braska wore, more than ten years ago, when he still had Yevon’s favor. “She loved a priest. She was already sick, and he knew, and he left.”

If Braska is supposed to feel anything that isn’t hers, he doesn’t. His mind is clear, hollow, full of feelings not his own. He trusts that peace will come for him in time. He’ll be along soon.

He imagines Remty in this woman’s place, but only for a moment, and his steps don’t falter.

“Another,” Egia demands, and Braska complies, calls more pyreflies to him. one drifts close to his eyes, with all the pain of illness reflected in it, and desperate laughter, and he tells Egia everything he sees. Dismissing pyreflies is one thing, but keeping them, calling them, reading them, that’s more, that’s taken him years, but now he knows. He knows that this woman lied to her children, pretended all was well so that she could provide for them. He knows that this woman wonders if she had confessed the truth, if her life would have been easier, even if theirs would have suffered. He knows that there is a depth to regret, that a choice made and committed to can still have doubts woven through it, moments of might-have-been that glimmer like stains in shining cloth, the absence of intention. He dances, and takes her death into himself but does not feel it, learns her life but does not live it.

At last, Egia says, “Send her,” and he changes the steps, prays her to the Farplane and the world without regret beyond, where her shade will calm her children if they should seek her out. Now the only memories of her in Spira are not her own.

He rests his staff at last, and does not lean on it.

“Finally,” Egia says. “You’ve taken your time, but you’re done. Praise be to Yevon,” she sweeps into prayer, a creak in her bones. “I’ll make your case to the Maesters. If they have any sense, they’ll send you to Besaid to get you started.”

He prays in kind, still short of breath from dancing, but knows enough now not to let it show. “I thank you.”

“You’d better.” She huffs out a laugh. “I can only hope they don’t start calling me mad for taking you on at all.”

“You can do more than hope,” he says, with more humor than he means. “You _were_ mad to.”

“Bite your tongue, Braska. All summoners are mad. We’re also forgiving.”

That hasn’t been Braska’s experience at all, but he knows better than to say so. “Thank you,” he says again, instead.

“There’s no good news to tell yet, so don’t tell it.” She waves him off, turns to the corpse to draw the bindings around it, to prepare her for her meager funeral. “Go rest. Be with your daughter. If you’re lucky, you won’t have much more time with her.”

For all the cruelties that she’s subjected Braska to these last three years, this is one of the most callous things she’s ever said to him. But it’s true, and Braska doesn’t permit it to sting. He bows again, and takes his leave, with only one last look at the corpse, whose name he knows without ever hearing it in life.

Once in the halls, he makes his way quietly, rebraids his hair as he walks. Even if it’s provisional, he can’t help the sense of relief washing over him. He’s done, or at least he’s completed his training. Three years, forcing his hand with the living and living among the dead. Three grueling years, being told that his suffering is the wrong suffering, his compassion the wrong compassion. Three years of almost believing that the people he wants to save don’t deserve it, for their hatefulness and shortsightedness and derision, and of being just wrong enough to keep going.

He listens briefly at the door to his apartment. Inside, Yuna laughs, and Auron says something quietly in turn. If it weren’t for them, none of this would be bearable at all.

He knows he can’t tell them the good news if there is none, so he steels himself, opens the door.

_“Haatmadesa!_ ” Yuna yells, and whips around, uncovering her eyes. Auron freezes in place immediately.

Needletime! He remembers this game, from the little Al Bhed children playing it at Home. Remty must have taught it to Yuna years ago. He had no idea she still knew how to play, let alone when she’d find the time to teach it to Auron. And Auron’s taking it so seriously, not budging an inch, never mind that he’s putting much more weight on his left foot than his right and someone has to give soon.

Braska bursts out laughing, and Auron turns to the door, clearly surprised that he’s here, and Yuna squeals, victorious. “You moved! I won! Byby, I won!”

“You did.” He grins, shuts the door behind him. “Great job! How many times have you won?”

She thinks a moment, then holds up all five fingers on both hands. “Ten. Sir Auron’s not good at staying still.”

“Really,” Braska laughs. “Good evening, Auron.”

“It took some time for me to learn the rules,” he says. “First, I thought it was just that you can’t move your feet. Then, you can’t move your arms. Then, you can’t even blink.” He smiles a little, nods a polite hello. “We played something similar as children, but the rules are just different enough to be confusing.”

“I understand.” Braska goes to the pantry, roots around for food. “Have you eaten? Can you stay?”

“I have, but yes. I have night guard this week.”

That’s food for two, then, but tea for three. Braska gathers the bowls, and Yuna smiles and scrambles over to help set up the board. “Are you sure you don’t want to get some rest?”

Auron shakes his head. “I slept most of the morning.”

“Right,” Braska remembers, “the party. How is Hakan?”

The talk after that is small, welcoming, easy. Braska prepares dinner, and Auron, once he’s caught Braska up on the goings-on, resumes Needletime with Yuna. They play ten more rounds, and Braska referees from the stove. Yuna wins every time, but she doesn’t accuse Auron of letting her.

And dinner is just as easy, so comfortable that it’s easy to forget where they are, where Braska was only an hour ago. He spices the rice with crushed nuts and sweet peppers, leaves off the dried meat in case Auron decides to have a few bites after all. He does, but only after Yuna’s finished her bowl and insists she’s done. They talk, and Auron’s subordinates are falling in line, and it’s about time. Yuna has started to learn how to set broken bones before she casts. Braska doesn’t tell them the specifics of his training, but does mention that Lady Egia was especially kind today, and Auron doesn’t press for more than that.

And then Auron surprises everyone with a gift (and it can only be a gift), of a dozen twice-cooked soft chestnuts, wrapped in two silk scarves. “There were a lot left over last night,” he explains, “and this was my share. It’s too many for only me.”

Yuna bounds up and hugs him, and Braska grins. “Thank you,” he says, “I haven’t had those in years!”

“They weren’t that popular last night,” Auron admits with a smirk, “especially with the initiates who didn’t care for the wine either, or couldn’t drink it. I thought you might know how to bring the flavor out.”

“I have just the thing,” Braska says, and goes to the tea shelf. Even if he can’t tell them it’s a special occasion, he can show them how much he treasures a night like this. “There should be enough of this left for the three of us. _Tacand cbeha,_ ” he says quietly, “ from Home.”

Auron’s eyes widen, but Yuna just beams, and she untangles herself from hugging Auron to hug Braska instead. “This was Sysy’s tea,” she murmurs, “right?”

“It was,” he says. “She should be here too.”

He brews the tea, and Yuna arranges the chestnuts in a bowl. Auron explains that she can keep the scarves too, and Braska has to wonder if he’s the only one keeping secrets tonight, but of course doesn’t say so aloud. Instead, he listens as Auron explains to Yuna, who’s never had them before, how the chestnuts are made. Roasted first with the shells still on but cut open so the heat breaks in, then pried out of the shell, covered in honey and flour and fried like dumplings. “When I was your age,” Auron says, “I used to think that was the only way to make chestnuts good at all.”

“So if you don’t like them, that’s all right,” Braska says.

Yuna nods. “I understand. But if Sir Auron likes them, I’m sure I will too!”

The tea is ready in short order, and Braska takes a sip, eats a chestnut, and thinks he chose well: the Al Bhed tea is has a breezy, crisp flavor that offsets the tart chestnuts. Yuna only eats one, scrunches up her nose and leaves most of the nutmeat behind to favor the sweet batter, but she does drink all the tea and still thanks Auron for the gift, even if it wasn’t all she hoped it would be. Some tastes never sit well with children, Braska thinks, remembering the stewed greens and rock mushrooms and pungent mixed fish that plagued his palate all the way through adolescence. Auron commiserates about the fish, but the rest he can’t remember ever minding. Braska laughs, thinks he must have a stomach of steel.

Once the tea is done, it’s time for Yuna to get ready for bed. She’s old enough now to do it on her own, and has been proud of that lately, so Braska offers to walk Auron to his post and let Yuna have a few minutes to herself.

Almost as soon as the door is shut, Auron asks, “My lord, are you all right? Has something happened?”

Braska smiles, shakes his head. Leave it to Auron to know. “Yes, I’m fine. But you’re right, something has happened.” He starts to walk down the hall, and Auron follows, even if he really should be leading. “Lady Egia is making my case with the Maesters. I may be able to start soon.” _On the pilgrimage,_ he doesn’t have to say. And even if he says _start_ instead of _leave_ he knows Auron hears what it truly means.

“Congratulations,” Auron breathes, and is about to say more, but Braska waves his hand, cuts him off.

“Nothing’s set,” Braska says. “And I have no idea how long it will take, if they do decide to let me go.”

“They can’t stop you.”

“They can call me a rogue and a heretic and bar me from the temples.”

“They’d have no cause!” Auron doesn’t have the same delicacy about keeping his voice down, but at least they’ve already rounded the corner away from the room and Yuna won’t overhear. “You’ve done all they asked. You’ve done _more_ than they asked. If they bar you from going, it’s only out of spite. They can’t claim to serve Yevon and stop you from doing so.”

It’s been three years. Braska has felt that stretch of time all day, every day as it grows, mires him in the world of the dead. Auron hasn’t felt it, or if he has, not in the same way. But it must look like improvement and good will to Auron, if Braska’s made it this far. 

“Perhaps.” Braska gives him the benefit of the doubt. “But if it does turn out that I can go, please. I don’t want to get your hopes up, but let me ask you formally now. Will you be my guardian?”

“Always,” Auron says, without a moment’s hesitation.

“I’m honored,” Braska laughs. “But what about your command?”

“You’re more important than that.”

“But you do have responsibilities here. Please, there’s still a chance that the Maesters will say no. You still have a place here, even if I don’t, and a chance to do great things. Don’t ask to be forsworn until I’ve been assured that I can leave.”

“I don’t intend to be forsworn. ”

“But you do intend to come with me.”

“High Summoner Yocun had three monks as guardians. Jinna, Gaila, and Yeanu. None of them were ever forsworn.”

“But none of them returned. Please, Auron. Wait. You can’t come with me if I don’t go.”

It’s sensible, and Auron must see that at least. He takes his time, visibly lets that plea sink in. Braska nearly holds his breath, and Auron breathes deeply enough for the both of them, harsh enough that his armor strains at the seams. “Fine,” he says. “That’s fair. And since Maester Gaehanne will be hearing your suit as well, she might expect my request.”

Good. “I’m not sure she’ll let you go so easily,” Braska jokes, hoping it will distract Auron from all the rest. “Especially now that Hakan has stepped down. I know what it is to be in the Maesters’ trust. They don’t let go of people they value.”

“Politics,” Auron snarls, disdain plain in the roll of his eyes. “I don’t want to hear that from you too.”

“Forgive me,” Braska says, earnestly, and lowers his eyes. “I didn’t mean to strike a nerve.”

“It’s fine,” he says, though clearly it isn’t. But now is not the time to press.

*

Auron makes it to his post on time, of course: earlier than three of his eight subordinates. The other five are lounging about, and come to attention once Auron walks in. The lineup has changed a little these last three years, but the numbers remain almost exactly the same. Bappan stuffs a sphere into his sleeve. Rakta doesn’t hide the book she was reading, just folds it shut around her finger, keeps the page marked. She’ll probably start reading again as soon as she gets to her post, if Auron doesn’t confiscate it or put her somewhere visible.

But it’s night guard. The traditional compensation for getting stuck on the late rounds is less scrutiny.

Rules are rules, though, and Auron knows that if they slack off, it comes back to him. He pairs them off and sets up the rotation, Bappan and Hayat trading off with Liyi and Houtta (when he gets here) at the Macalania gate, Rakta and Hishina at the Calm Lands gate and the two stragglers as their alternates. Auron will patrol between the two during the shift changes, as always.

The first four salute and depart. Liyi waits for Houtta, who does show up with minutes to go, and the other two arrive together a minute late, and are informed of their position and schedule. It all falls into place. His duties always do.

And once he’s alone, traversing the halls between his subordinates, all the things that aren’t in place start to show their precariousness.

Finally, Braska will be allowed to start his journey. Years of training and abuse finally culminate, and Auron knows what that’s like as much as any monk. He’s living that now, has since he assumed this rank. He can understand if Braska doesn’t want him to give it up. It must look to him like a privilege earned after decades of labor, and in a sense it is.

If Braska had never come back, Auron would accept this life without question. But he did, and brought Auron’s true calling with him.

He comes to a stop at the grand double doors to the receiving chamber before the statuary. He imagines Braska’s statue, as regal as he is in life, a beacon of guidance to all those who fight against judgment and prejudice, proof that Yevon’s favor never leaves those whose hearts are true. Braska deserves that, deserves to be immortalized as hope to all those who despair of the world around them, and Auron swore long ago that he would make that happen.

But he also swore, even longer ago, that his life would begin and end within the walls of the Temple of Bevelle.

There’s also the chance, abhorrent as it is, that Braska doesn’t want Auron with him. He offered, he _asked_ , but the reservations came out after. Braska’s been known to ask and expect refusal--not with Auron, not as far as he knows, but there, not as far as he knows. There’s always that chance. Braska brought up Auron’s _place_ and _position_ , just like Kinoc, and if he suspects that Auron’s humoring him or using him to get ahead, he might just intend to let him down gently.

No. Braska would never.

“Auron!” Kinoc waves from down the hall. His group should just be finishing up, with the shift before Auron’s. That would explain it.

Auron waves over as well. “Going back to the room?”

“Yes, but I’m glad I caught you first.” Kinoc bounds over, makes it clear that this isn’t just a check-in to be shouted in the corridor. So Auron leans in, down the short distance. Auron’s not so tall, but Kinoc never did catch up. “I just want to apologize,” Kinoc says, low, earnest. “About last night. I shouldn’t have gotten on your case. I might have let the wine talk a little, and that wasn’t fair to you. I’m swearing it off.”

Auron hadn’t expected an apology, let alone an oath. “You didn’t have to do that,” he says. “It’s fine. Thank you.”

“Maybe not, but you’re not the first to call me out for running my mouth. The less trouble I have keeping it shut, the better, right?” Kinoc laughs, and Auron doesn’t mind laughing with him, not at this. “Anyway, I’m sorry.”

Auron nods. “Apology accepted.”

“I’ve just been worried about you.” Kinoc darts a quick glance over his shoulder, like he’s not sure they’re alone, the way he always has when something’s hanging over him, even on shift, after dark.

“About what?”

“People talk,” he says, “that’s all. Look, Auron, you’re one of the best fighters we’ve got. Everyone knows that. I’ve been jealous of that for years.”

“You’re not bad yourself, you know.”

“Yeah, but not like you. Not at that, anyway. But that’s what I mean. It’s not enough to be strong. You’ve got to be smart. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here, right?”

“Kinoc, if this is about what I think it is--”

“Okay, maybe you’re not _that_ stupid,” he says with a grin. But that smile fades down to the dregs, and Kinoc’s eyes are heavy and serious in the shadow of the hallway spheres. “If you can figure out what I’m talking about, you’re not an idiot. You’re not just being duped and seduced.”

Before Auron can respond to that--and he would have, with more violence than Kinoc probably deserves--Kinoc cuts him off.

“So what is it,” he asks, “what is it to you? What’s the heretic worth?”

How _dare_ he. “Go back to the room,” he growls, just barely keeping his temper in check and his fists at his sides. “Clearly we’re not talking about the same thing.”

“No, we definitely are.” Kinoc backs off, hands up to surrender. “But you’re right. Not here. Look, I came to apologize, I’m sorry, but you’re right. I’ll see you later.” And with that, he turns his back and walks off, leaving Auron to his rounds.

They go by slowly, a loop of night and silence, in the same halls Auron’s always walked.

*

Whether he’s training with Lady Egia or not, Braska rises early to get Yuna ready. It used to be that she woke earlier, but these past years she’s learned to sleep through the night, and some days it’s difficult to get her out from under the blankets. Braska understands.

So he lets the morning start, brews rice and lentils and lets Yuna sleep until they’re ready. She doesn’t dawdle this morning, washes up and gets dressed and bundles off to the baths all on her own, and when she comes back she eats a bowl of rice almost as big as Braska’s.

“Exciting day ahead?” he asks, when he sees how zealously Yuna attacks her lentils.

“Mhm!” She nods, wipes her lip and swallows before answering. “Sister Gyuri is taking us to meet the chocobos today. She said to eat a lot so we don’t get tired.”

“That’s wonderful! Should I send you with some food?”

“Maybe? Sister Gyuri says that the chocobos don’t eat the same as we do.”

“I meant for you.” He smiles, checks the shelf for anything that can be put together quickly. “Here. I’ll make some rice balls with coconut and dried fruit. That way, the chocobos can eat them too.”

“Do we have enough?”

It always hurts that she has to ask that. “Yes, Yuna. You don’t need to worry about that.”

“But you haven’t been hunting with Sir Auron for a long time.” She looks down at her bowl, puts her spoon down like she won’t pick it up again.

“Not that long,” he says. “Just a month. And we’ll go again soon. Come on, Yuna, finish your rice. You don’t want to fall asleep standing up.”

She nods, picks up the spoon again, and takes an obedient mouthful. Braska sets himself to rolling up rice balls, heads the stove again to fry them quickly so they’ll keep.

Once Yuna’s had a few more bites of breakfast, she says, simply, “I love Sir Auron.”

Braska folds his hands around the rice, presses it tight. “I’m so glad.”

“I think Sysy would love him too.” She picks up her cup of water, but doesn’t drink just yet. “Do you love him, Byby?”

“He’s the truest friend I’ve ever had.” Braska smiles, almost in awe at how true that feels, how much brighter the world seems for a moment. “So yes. I love him too.”

“Will he stay with us?”

Braska drops the rice onto the skillet. “Yuna. Forgive me.” The rice can fry on its own, this is more important, and he sits down at the board next to her. “You know that I may be going away soon, right?”

Most of the sparkle leaves Yuna’s eyes, and she holds her spoon very tight, but she nods. Yes. “And you won’t come back.”

“Yes.” He holds her close, but leaves her arms free so she can eat if she wants to, which it seems she doesn’t. “Auron may come with me. But he might stay here with you instead. Would that be all right?”

She nods again, nestles against his chest. “Both are good. But Sir Auron should go with you, Byby. You shouldn’t be alone.”

“What about you?” Braska forces a smile, keeps his tone as light as he can. “I don’t want you to be alone either.”

Yuna doesn’t say anything to that, and the rice smokes in the skillet, ready to turn over. After a long moment, he gives her another tight hug, then gets up to fix the rice, and Yuna finishes her breakfast in dutiful silence.

A few more moments, and she’s ready to head out, parcel of rice in hand. He gives her a kiss on the head and sends her off down the hall, where the priests and priestesses are waiting with all the other children, ready to shepherd them along. Some wave, and Braska waves back, glad for politeness and acceptance at long last.

And then he leans a hand on the door, and a torn scrap of paper drifts to the floor, cuts the air like a knife.

The children leave with their teachers, laughing and ready to learn, and Braska kneels to read whatever note this is. It’s not the first abuse that’s been nailed to his door, and he’s burned all the rest, given the hatefulness all the attention it deserves. This should be no different, and he almost doesn’t bother looking.

But red ink screams, whether he wants to read it or not.

_CONGRATULATIONS, HERETIC,_ it says in a violent scrawl. _WE’LL TAKE CARE OF YOUR SIN SPAWN. YOU TAKE ONE STEP TOWARD ZANARKAND, YOU’LL SEE HER ON THE FARPLANE._

The steps of the children fade into the silence of the temple, and Braska crushes the note in his fist.

*


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter warrants an additional warning for explicit suicidal ideation.

There are nights when Auron can simply fall into bed and sleep comes over him like a blow to the head. Lately, especially when his unit is responsible for night guard, there are mornings when blackout curtains and sheer exhaustion allow for something more or less the same. This morning isn’t one of those. He knows he isn’t alone, that since the sun is high there are a few dozen other monks only half-passed out in their rooms, or enjoying their privacy, or meditating if they can’t sleep.

Among the monks Auron’s age, it’s simply a new pattern to accept, like all the other unwritten rules among those who share rooms and sleep close. Don’t interrupt your roommate in meditation. Don’t snoop. Don’t prank, even if you used to when you shared a barracks, because now that you’re in twos and threes everyone gets in trouble even if only one pallet in a room is disturbed. Shut the door again if it was shut when you walked in. If a partition is drawn, it’s none of your business.

And never repeat what you hear when the partitions are drawn.

On his side of the room, Kinoc gives every sign of still being asleep: the occasional low snore or rustle of blankets, no signs of getting up, the soft but uneven breathing that means rest, not meditation. And even if he wasn’t asleep, Auron would only feel a little embarrassed for doing this, since he’s heard it from Kinoc as well, usually on those long sleepless nights or, lately, mornings. If anything, Kinoc does it more often, not that that’s remarkable. Ever since they were apprentices, it’s been a quiet fact, that sometimes the urge overcomes you, and it’s not shameful to see to your body’s needs, and unless you’ve taken a particularly strong oath against sex there’s nothing to remark on for yourself or anyone else, so don’t.

In that tacit trust, Auron relaxes into his pallet, and gives in.

He tightens is hand, and his thoughts turn to Braska--not that that’s uncommon, not at all, and he gave up on being ashamed of that long ago. The only shame is in covetousness, not longing, and this is longing, fulfilled. _He asked me to be his guardian,_ Auron thinks, and the thought isn’t salacious but sends a thrill through his flesh all the same. _It’s not pretense, not convenience. He trusts me. He trusts me with his life._ And he’ll trust Auron with it on the road to Zanarkand, alone together on the journey. Auron smiles, exhales, almost a sigh. Alone, together, with Braska.

There will still be nights, mornings, like this on the road. There are when Auron’s alone, so there certainly will be when the subject of his fantasies is there as well. It occurs to Auron that Braska might not know those quiet rules, that he might be concerned, might even interrupt.

The thought shouldn’t make Auron harder, but it does. Inexorably.

Braska might interrupt. Auron pictures it, clear as last night, Braska pulling back the curtains, framed in the light that Auron was trying to block out. Auron doesn’t still his hand, if anything he quickens it, anything to mitigate the heat that’s racing through him. He should be embarrassed. He might be. It doesn’t help. Because Braska wouldn’t care, would he, he’d just smile and make a joke, an offer, _here, do you need help--_

Auron turns his face to the wall beside his pallet, muffles his mouth against his shoulder to stifle whatever undignified sound just escaped him.

He’d help. Braska would help. It would be nothing to him, as easy as a spell in the field, just to come in and settle around Auron, draw him against his chest, cover his hand. Sweet Yevon, Braska’s hands, soft fingers and hard palms and skin so cool and smooth it could be water. Healer’s hands. _Summoner’s_ hands, strong enough to hold life. Auron’s felt them for years but never like this, never over his own, never stroking him where he burns and wants, so deeply he can’t speak.

But Braska could. He could speak, understand, laugh into Auron’s shoulder, _You want me this much?_

“Yes,” Auron can’t help, can’t stop, “my lord, yes.” He speeds his hand, but Braska wouldn’t follow. _Patience,_ he’d say, _let me, let me show you,_ like he’s shown Auron so much. And patience is a struggle, it always is, but for Braska he’ll try. He can’t stop but he’ll slow, wait, hang on, and if Braska asked him he’d let go entirely and let him take over but that’s not what he wants. Braska’s wants are clear, his laugher like a stutter in Auron’s pulse, _Show me,_ he’d say, _show me you’re mine,_ and Auron wants nothing more in the world.

He buries his face in the pallet, bites the corner. The fantasy of holding on doesn’t carry over to reality, and he’s too close to stop.

Braska wouldn’t mind that either. _It’s all right,_ he’d say, no malice, no disappointment, just his steady hands and wide arms and infinite patience, _finish. Come._

“Yes,” Auron groans, _yes, yes Braska, my lord, yes,_ and isn’t sure what else he says, but what he does is evident.

It’s easier to sleep after that, with his body wrung out, his mind and path clear. Beyond the partition, Kinoc coughs and tosses in his sleep, but that’s the last Auron hears beyond the rustle of his blankets as he cleans his hand and drifts.

*

The wyrm Evrae wheels through the sky, her scales all the colors of the sunset. She glides more than flies, her wings barely beating the air, too far away for Braska to hear. Up at the spire of the temple’s palace, the wind is too strong for him to hear anything else, but that’s fine. And the city and its canals below is too far to focus on, the people in the streets just shifting colors, a river of life with currents all its own, a distant blur. Evrae protects the city but almost never descends to meet the people she serves in Yevon’s name.

Braska wonders if she’s content.

He sits with his feet off the ledge of one of the balconies, a thousand feet above the ground. Clouds pass above him but also beneath, cool wisps of air, portending rain tomorrow. They’ll have to hold the ceremony inside, but it doesn’t matter. Braska might not even go. He shouldn’t.

Another note was nailed to his door this morning. That’s one every morning for the last three days. He considers himself lucky he found it before Lady Egia dropped by with the good news. They’ve accepted his suit. The five temples will permit him into the chambers of the fayth.

And the vigilantes here will kill Yuna if he goes.

Three years. Three years and it’s come to nothing. Braska isn’t even surprised. If he feels anything at all--he’s sure he does, he just can’t _feel_ it, ridiculous as that sounds--it’s passive amusement. If this had happened to someone else, a player on the stage with a fable to tell, Braska could point out the irony with a smile. But nothing burns in him, nothing angers him. Nothing even frustrates him about this. He should have seen it coming, and never tried, and that is that.

He looks down over the ledge. A cloud blocks his sight for a moment, but once it passes, there’s a courtyard beneath, opening into a canal, the steep stone edges clustered with people going about their lives. Any of them could have written the note. Any of the people of Spira could be so hateful. But he can’t muster anger at people he can’t see. He can’t even dredge up paranoia. Yuna is safe with Sister Gyuri and the children, he’s certain of it, but even if she weren’t there would be nothing Braska could do.

Besides. They won’t strike if Braska doesn’t try to leave. Every note said as much.

His hair weighs on his shoulders, plasters to the back of his neck. It would be a clean fall, he thinks. The wind is northerly, away from the temple wall. He’d land more or less intact.

“My lord!” Auron bounds up behind him, races up the stairs, and stops at the top once Braska’s turned around. He’s smiling, brighter than Braska’s ever seen him smile, and Braska would feel so honored if he couldn’t guess why. “I came as soon as I heard.” He comes a step nearer, and the sunset reflected in his dark eyes is almost painful. “You can go.”

“So it would seem,” Braska says. He should smile, so he tries, but the sun in the corner of his eye makes it feel more like a grimace. He stops trying. “Sorry to be so hard to find.”

“I understand.” Auron comes closer, looks out over the city as well. “I used to come up here too, before I found better places to be alone.”

“It’s not that popular tonight.” Braska looks down at the city, the canals, the clouds.

“I’m not sure why,” Auron says. “It’s beautiful.”

It is, and Braska says so, aloud but softer than he means. The sun continues to set, and the shadows stretch, and Auron stands beside him in the light. This is going to break his heart, but he’ll understand. He has to. The same way he understood the potential cost of their fight against the spherimorph, on that first hunt so long ago, he’ll understand this.

“Auron,” Braska starts, delicately, “forgive me. But I don’t think you’ll be able to go with me.”

Something in Auron’s face cracks, his jaw flashing open in the sun. “My lord? Has something happened?”

“Not as such,” he says. It doesn’t hurt to keep going, but even if Auron’s face has concern writ on it as clear as sunlight, Braska knows he’ll be all right. This will all be all right. “It’s just that I’m not going on the pilgrimage after all.”

“But--”

“But I’ll need you to take care of Yuna,” he finishes. He looks down the side of the temple, at the last streaks of light turning the city all the colors of tarnish and flame. Bevelle was a machina city once, he remembers, has grown to more than that but hid the rot and rust within. Hypocrisy should hurt more than it does. Anything should hurt. The fall would, but only for a moment.

“My lord,” Auron tries, “I don’t understand.”

“They’re starting to threaten Yuna,” Braska says, because of course Auron wouldn’t know, and he should know if he’s going to do what Braska needs. “They--forgive me. Sometimes they leave threats on my door. And they--” This, he can’t finish. He hands Auron the most recent note instead, the only one he hasn’t burned.

_MAKE YOUR CHOICE, HERETIC,_ it says, in the same red ink as all the others. _SAVE YOUR SPAWN OR PROFANE YEVON. WE KNOW WHICH WE’D PREFER. DO YOU?_

He lets Auron read it. Nothing more needs to be said, at least not now. There. That ties an end up, and all that’s left--

“This is unacceptable,” Auron snarls, “this is an outrage! My lord, when did you get this?”

“This morning,” he says, low. “Every morning, the last three days.”

“Am I the first person you’ve told?”

“Who else would listen?”

Auron balls up the note in his fist, glowers down at it like his eyes alone could set it on fire. “It’s unfair,” he says. “Where is she? Why aren’t you with her? Someone should know!”

“And what would they do?” It’s an honest question. “I mean nothing to them.”

“Even if they call you a heretic, Yuna is completely innocent!”

“Is she?” Braska glances at the sun, at its rays stretching into the clouds and down to the city. “They call her sin spawn. Is she innocent at all, to these people?”

“She should be!”

“I’m glad you think so,” Braska says, “I’m glad you know. I’m glad you’re here. So, please. Keep her safe for me. Even if it means not going. Could you?”

“But my lord---Braska--what would you do if you went alone?”

“I’m not going.” It’s easy to say: he accepted the possibility long ago, even if he hoped it wouldn’t come to this. “But I...might need you to take care of her,” he chooses, eventually. There’s nothing final in this yet. There’s nothing set until he dies. And dying would be easy, wouldn’t it? Up here, he wouldn’t leave a mark. The temple wouldn’t miss his passing. Another summoner who couldn’t go the distance. Another heretic who failed to be redeemed. That’s all he’d be to them. Remty would understand.

Remty isn’t here.

Braska wonders, dimly, like a question or a hope, if it counts as a step on the road to Zanarkand if he only walks off the ledge.

It would be so easy. And it would make so much sense. One step, one gentle shove, and Yuna would be free. One quick painless fall and there would be no questions of his faith or his resolve, and another summoner would make it, and all things being equal he’d be done, at last--

Auron grabs him by the shoulders and kisses him.

For a moment, there’s nothing but shock and force. It’s a brutal kiss, desperate and clashing and afraid. Auron’s lips are hard and his hands are harder, square nails against Braska’s arms like he understands, like he’s prying him back, like a ship dropping anchor against a violent tide. Braska thinks that Auron might never have kissed anyone before, he’s not very good at it, but there’s something wonderful here all the same, something sad, painful, true. He crushes his mouth to Braska’s and holds on, and Braska loses his breath, loses his chance to give in. He didn’t expect this.

_Oh,_ he thinks. _I should have._

“Don’t,” Auron breathes, “don’t. Please. Don’t.”

He knows.

He leans his forehead against Braska’s, keeps him close. “Don’t. There has to be another way. _Don’t._ ”

“I’m sorry.” Braska didn’t kiss back, didn’t know to, but there’s more to it, more right even if everything else is wrong. Years ago, Braska wondered what it would be like to be the only thing in Auron’s sight. He knows, now. And he knows how long it’s been true. “I’m sorry, I don’t want to worry you--”

“Then don’t,” Auron says, again, his meaning clear as water.

Braska shuts his eyes, lets his arms hang slack. Auron’s still holding on to him, and he feels it, but vertigo lurches through him even if he’s standing still. All he can say, all he can for out of his throat, is “Forgive me,” and that’s not right. That’s not enough. He tries again. “I won’t.”

There. And he means it.

Auron’s hands tighten, pull back to curl to fists on Braska’s sleeves. “There is another way,” he says. “I’ll find out who’s sending them.” His forehead’s still pressed to Braska’s, or Braska’s to his, but he doesn’t move any closer.

“Auron, you don’t have to.”

“You said to keep Yuna safe,” he says, like it’s as easy as falling. “I will. But not only her.”

Braska shakes his head, minutely, and he bumps Auron’s forehead as well but Auron doesn’t pull back. “They’re making it official tomorrow. The Maesters,” Braska clarifies, “they’re announcing my intent. There’s a ceremony. I can’t keep her safe if I have to be there.”

“Then I’ll be with her.”

How is it all so simple to Auron? “What about your post?”

“I’ll start now. My lord, don’t you understand? You’re more important than this.”

_I shouldn’t be,_ Braska thinks, clear as pain, but knows the thought’s coming from the wrong place as soon is it fills his head. “Forgive me, Auron.”

“There’s no need,” he says. “But promise me you’ll be here tomorrow. Please. Trust me. Yuna will be safe.” He pulls back, and Braska opens his eyes to that sharp singularity of focus that drew him to Auron in the first place. “And so will you.”

How long has Auron felt this way? How long has Braska been the only thing in Auron’s sight? Has it been like this from the start?

Braska’s breath is too shallow to touch his throat, but still there’s air caught in it. The heat in Auron’s eyes turns them nearly black, and Braska can’t look away either.

With one last tightening of his hands on Braska’s arms, Auron pulls back at last, takes a short step away from the ledge, and Braska follows him, like the distance between them shouldn’t be opened but can’t be closed. “I promise,” Braska says.

“Good,” Auron nods, shakily, his eyes only leaving Braska’s for one uneasy blink. “Go to her. I’ll see you tonight if I can get away, and tell you what I know.”

“All right.”

“We’ll get to the bottom of this,” he says, backing away, “I swear it,” and then he turns and goes down the stairs at a run, leaving Braska on the roof.

Braska’s hand drifts up toward his lips. He touches them to his knuckle, as if to test if he’s still alive, if there’s breath to be had. There is. It’s his. And Auron kissed him. It was terrifying, and wonderful, and a thousand other thoughts rush into Braska’s mind all at once, like light through parted curtains.

_I love him too,_ he’d said to Yuna, that morning not so long ago. 

“Oh,” he says to himself, here, now, “I do.”

*

Auron curses himself all the way down the stairs, into the machina elevator, and through the halls to mess. How dare he presume. How dare he act on desires it’s unfair for him to have. And how dare he push this onto Braska when Braska is in so much pain, when his life and Yuna’s are under attack, when he looks down the slope of a building like death is a reprieve. How _dare_ he.

But he couldn’t think of anything else. And that’s the most reprehensible part of all this: that there should be another way, there _is_ another way, and he even said so--while there he was, feeling like there was no recourse but to kiss him.

And how dare he worry about this at all, right now. There are more important things to think about, to do. And he charges into mess with the intent to do just that.

He finds Kinoc settling in with a bowl of noodle soup, cracking an egg on the rim. There are worse times to interrupt him, and Kinoc slides over, makes room. “Sorry I didn’t save you a place,” he says. 

“It’s fine,” Auron says. He sits down at the board, as long as there’s room. “I need to talk to you.”

Kinoc raises an eyebrow. “Sure. Is this about the other night?”

They’re not alone in the mess, so Kinoc is probably being discreet. Good. “Yes. But also no.”

Kinoc drags his spoon through the boiling egg, waits for it to cook, and definitely rolls his eyes. “So it’s about who, not what.”

“You’re the one who knows everything,” Auron says.

“More than you think.” Kinoc jabs his spoon into the yolk, lets it fragment around the noodles. “And I meant what I said. This is getting ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous,” Auron repeats. “Kinoc, we’ve been through this.”

“No, we haven’t. Not to my satisfaction, anyway. And if you want anything from me, I get to tell you what I want from you, and what I want is for you to stop being an idiot.”

“This isn’t about me!”

“Then don’t drag me into it.”

Considering that’s exactly what Auron’s about to do--even if it’s just because Kinoc might know who’s behind the threats--he outright says so. “All I want to know is who’s nailing things to his door.”

Kinoc shoves his bowl away, hard enough that some of the broth sloshes over the edge. “I give up. I’ve officially given up on you, Auron. Yevon help you, because He knows I won’t.”

“Kinoc--”

“I’m not letting you wrap me up in your thing with the heretic. I’ve prayed that someone will talk you out of it, and I’ve warned you personally since Yevon doesn’t seem to be getting through. Something is _wrong_ with you, Auron. You’ve lost the Way completely and I will not let you drag me into it.”

Something curls like fire in the pit of Auron’s stomach. “You wrote the notes.”

“I didn’t! I don’t know what notes you’re even talking about.”

“Then why did you say you didn’t?”

“Because I give that failure all the attention he deserves-- _none._ ” Kinoc scoffs, turns back to his soup. The egg’s cooked by now, or it should be, and Auron clenches his fists so he doesn’t throw it in Kinoc’s face. “You give him enough for the both of us. For the rest of the temple.”

Auron stands up from the board. “How dare you!”

“How dare _you._ You spend more time in his room than ours, you moan his name in your sleep, and you walk out on chanting to meditate on him. Why pretend to serve Yevon when you’re worshiping him instead?”

Auron socks him right between the eyes.

Soup goes flying, and so does Kinoc, down the line and _crack_ against the board. Auron doesn’t care, doesn’t see much of anything, just lays into him again, grabs him by the throat and lands another punch, this time on his jaw. Kinoc kicks, twists underneath him and goes for Auron’s eyes, and Auron barely dodges, gets a scrape down his face and a rap to the side of his head. It’s not enough to stop him, nothing is, Kinoc has to _pay_ for this. And Kinoc fights dirty, always has, but Auron doesn’t care what he loses right now as long as Kinoc suffers for what he said.

When the other monks in the mess hall pry them apart, Auron’s still seeing red, still burning enough at the corners of his eyes that the world is all in haze. Kinoc’s not seeing much of anything, not out of two black eyes and a nose that the healers will have a hell of a time fixing.

Regret crashes down onto Auron only after the rage makes room.

*

“You should be over this by now,” Gaehanne says. Of course she’s seeing to this personally. “You’re better than this, Auron.”

He doesn’t agree. Or disagree. It’s not his place to speak. It’s his place to stand, hold the post, and wait. It’s his place to endure the cold. He won’t be able to put his uniform back on after this. That’s the point, he thinks.

“Brawling like _children_ ,” Gaehanne goes on, distaste evident through every scoff in her breath. She stands on the wrong side of the post, at the weapons rack. “I expected so much more from you.”

He could tell her everything. She’s a Maester, she’d be just as appalled at the people threatening Braska’s and Yuna’s lives, wouldn’t she?

_It’s the Maesters who cast him out in the first place._ Auron knows that as well as anyone. Kinoc was there that day too, ten years ago, listening in on the meeting that cast Braska out of Yevon’s sight.

For all Auron knows, even Gaehanne might laugh in his face.

“There is no excuse,” he says, like he should. “Let the fayth witness my contrition.”

He’ll endure this. He’ll stand through this, and be healed, and he’ll track down the ransomers without Kinoc’s help.

Gaehanne selects a stockwhip from the rack. Auron doesn’t know whether to be relieved that she’s not going to cane him like a child, or simply terrified. He’s never been whipped before, not with hide, and hasn’t been caned since he was an apprentice. He’s been a model initiate, a good sub-commander. That’s all about to change.

Kinoc asked him _What’s the heretic worth?_

Braska is worth this. Braska is worth more than this.

Auron braces himself for a world of pain, and gets it.

The first strike is more shock than hurt. It’s like being bitten, Auron thinks, already dizzy from the heat in his head and on his back. Two more lashes and the pain settles in, a steady hateful burn, and then every stroke is scouring fire. Four. Five. Six, right across his upper back, almost at his neck, and Auron pitches forward against the post, grits his teeth and holds on. He holds his screams until ten or twelve, but after that he loses count and control, and there’s nothing but abuse, fear, mortification.

In the minute part of him that can still feel anything but pain, he repeats to himself, _Worth this. Worth this. He’s worth this._

His knees give out, a dozen or more lashes later, and Gaehanne pauses to help him back up to his feet. There’s more to go. He knows it, but can’t see through the wet red heat in his eyes. Gaehanne rearranges him at the post, forces his hands closed on the grips. “What did he do, Auron? What did he say?”

She might not even be asking him. She could be asking about Braska, Kinoc, even Yevon, and the answer’s so different for all three of them that Auron shouldn’t speak at all.

He can’t help it. “He said I...serve another.”

Gaehanne’s hands were already cold, but a shiver runs through them, into the blood and fire on Auron’s skin. “And you hit him for that?”

It might be the strain, but there’s something low, something surprised in her voice, and Auron bites back tears, clings to consciousness. “It isn’t true.”

“Of course it isn’t,” she whispers. “I don’t doubt that. Neither should you.” She sounds almost proud, through the roar of blood in Auron’s ears. “He is with you. Let Him carry you through this.”

She lets him go, lets him stand, and lays the last five strokes into him all the same. And Auron makes it through still breathing, still conscious. When she finishes at last, and pries him off the post, she even helps him to the stretcher, and casts the first Cure spell herself, to mend the damage but not soothe the pain.

Auron’s last thought, before he passes out, is wonder at who will take care of Yuna tomorrow morning, when the ceremony begins. He tries to stand, tries to say so, but a deep black curtain comes over the world and stifles any warning in his heart.

*

The statuary is deserted, this time of night. There are monks outside on their rounds, of course, but no one else in here praying.

Back at the room, Yuna is asleep, as safe as she can ever be. Auron never came, but that’s probably not his fault: he has his duties, and Braska would never take him from them. But he asked two of Auron’s subordinates on night guard to mind the door, and they said they would. The lady monk, in particular, seemed to understand how difficult it is to leave a child alone at night, but Braska didn’t pry.

Auron is right. There has to be another way. But until Braska finds it, he’s just as lost as before.

_Lost,_ he thinks, _but not alone_.

So he kneels before the statues of the High Summoners who have gone before him, and prays. He throws himself into Yevon’s praises, sweeps out his arms and lets his voice ring out until it fills the chamber, until the hymn of the fayth is all that resounds in him and around him.

_Please,_ he asks any fayth who will hear him, _send me a sign. Accept me. Accept us. Let me make this world whole, free it from Sin, make it a place for my daughter to live without fear. A place where I could have lived without fear. Where Remty could have lived at all. Let me make that life more than a dream._

On the last two lines of the hymn, another voice joins his--light and high, like a child’s. 

He turns, and a boy in a dark hood stands before the doors to the chamber of the fayth. He’s a little older than Yuna, dark-skinned but not dressed like an islander. In fact, Braska’s not sure he’s ever seen clothing like that before, cloth that shines like it’s made of water, gold rope-belts that hang so low they must all be for ornamentation, not function. And he can’t see the boy’s eyes, but it’s definitely him singing.

“More than a dream, huh?” the boy says once he’s done, as if he could hear Braska’s thoughts.

Braska doesn’t question it. He smiles, stays on his knees and bows his head. “A life without grief is only a dream. But a life without Sin doesn’t have to be.”

The boy cocks his head, but not enough to reveal his face behind the hood. “And you think you can wake up the whole world?”

“If it’s the last thing I do,” Braska says.

The boy turns his back, and the crest of a golden wheel is drawn on the back of his vest. Braska’s seen that before. “Prove it,” the boy says, and then walks through the doors of the chamber. _Through_ them, they’re still closed, and no glow of pyreflies follows him.

The chamber is silent, with not even an echo or a breath to permeate the air.

_Well,_ Braska thinks, _I asked for a sign._ He gets to his feet, climbs the staircase to the doors. The boy’s voice, faint and distant, still sings the hymn beyond them, and when Braska presses his ear to the doors they swing open of their own accord.

He can’t do this. He can’t guarantee Yuna’s safety. Auron never reported in, and his subordinates will eventually have to leave, and Yuna might be alone in the morning.

No. He has to trust her, trust Auron, trust the people he means to save. He can’t go on the pilgrimage at all with fear in his heart, can’t let his concern for them hold him back. Yuna will never be safe. Auron may never be free. That will remain true whether Braska moves on or not, and if Braska does nothing for the sake of their safety it will change nothing. That’s what all these years of training have come down to, all those accusations of attachment, of worry. Letting go isn’t about security, it’s about trust, and if Braska can’t trust that the people closest to him will be safe, he can’t save the ones out of reach.

He walks through the doors, to face the trial of the fayth.

*


	8. Chapter 8

There are machina in the heart of Bevelle.

The corridor opens onto a glowing network of pathways and slopes, framed in pewter rods that spiral deep into a walled cavern. Tapestries line the walls and spheres glow at the heart of the sconces, but the floor of the pathways is made of living light, veins--no, _lenliedc_ , Remty called them _lenliedc_ , there isn’t a word for them in Spiran-- _lenliedc_ of red and blue trailing down toward the basin. It’s an elevator, but there’s no platform to stand on, and Braska doesn’t have the art or the tools to build one.

Anger seethes through Braska’s skull, rattles in his teeth. “Hypocrites,” he can’t help saying aloud, even if he keeps his voice to a whisper. They won’t let him have something as inconsequential as a teakettle, will reprimand their own for accepting the gift of an Al Bhed trinket, but they house in their holiest temple, in their holiest city, a network of machina so complex that they call it a trial.

He leans his hand on a pillar, touches the sphere that glows within it. The pillar slides along the floor, like it’s meant to be moved, like it could float.

Braska remembers, years ago, Remty explaining that even spheres are machina, in their own way. _What you call magic has a push-and-pull,_ she said, _a tension with machina. They resist each other, but can be made to work together._ And she demonstrated by waiting for a desert storm, mounting a sequence of spheres on the spires of Home and waiting for lightning to strike. In the morning, when the storm had passed, the spheres all glowed, and she installed one on a pillar to replace the current that allowed doors to open and close by touch.

With nothing to lose, he shoves the pillar, sphere and all, onto the _linlied_ pathway.

The pillar subsumes into a glowing glyph, a platform of symbols, dense enough to block the light. Braska takes an experimental step forward, and sure enough, it bears his weight and flows forward, carrying him along the slope and down.

Of course it does.

_Ten years,_ he thinks, _ten years you have condemned me. Three years, you have treated me like trash. You’ve attacked my wife’s people and hurled abuse at my daughter and lashed out at anyone who gave us a hand. You made my best friend live in fear and question his faith. You thwarted me at every turn, and now, this._

The platform rounds a corner, stalls at its chance to choose directions at Braska’s command.

_I believe in Yevon,_ he says, first inwardly and then aloud. “But not in its church. And I will make it to Zanarkand, and you will choke on your hypocrisy.” He shakes his head, lets the platform carry him to a silver node of machina and spheres, to mix them together like Remty taught him long ago. “And Spira will be better for it.”

*

Auron wakes up on his front, eyes crusted so thick he can’t open them, and when he reaches up to wipe the sleep away everything in his back seizes, all at once. Everything burns, and he shouts into the pallet, but shouting hurts just as much as moving, if not more since he can’t control it--and then quieting down is even worse.

“Pointless,” Kinoc says, beside the pallet, just out of Auron’s sight. “To tell you not to move, I mean.”

Auron stills his breathing just enough to make his body cooperate, and tilts toward Kinoc as much as he can. The two black eyes are mostly gone, just faintly yellow, but his nose is still set and held apart with tubes. Auron could feel more apologetic than he does. But at least he has an excuse not to talk, so he just nods as much as he’s able.

“Look,” Kinoc says. “I’m not changing my mind about him. And this just proves you’re being an idiot. But,” he sighs, “I looked into what you said. About the notes.”

Auron’s chest quakes, and however many Cure spells they cast on his back, it certainly wasn’t enough. “And?”

“I want to propose a truce,” Kinoc says. He gets up--his face and throat may be a mess, but he can still walk, that’s good. But the tube that’s propping his nose open means he probably hasn’t been out of the infirmary either. “It’s one thing to treat a known traitor like he deserves, but if they’re going after his daughter, that’s not fair. She can’t help how she came into this world, and it’s not right to target her. So I looked into it. I’ll tell you who’s writing the notes.”

He says it like he wants something in return, but that’s typical of Kinoc, so Auron just nods. It hurts only slightly less than talking.

“But you really need to keep track of your subordinates,” Kinoc says.

“--What?” Auron twists off the pallet, never mind the fire that races up his back and spreads all over.

“Auron, stay down!”

“ _No._ What do you mean, my subordinates?”

“I mean Rakta and Bappan. And Houtta. They’re only doing it because they care about you, Auron. They don’t want the heretic to drag you down.”

“He’s not a heretic!” Auron slams his hands down on the pallet, tries to push himself up, and that’s not fire, that’s _needles_ down his spine and all across his shoulders. His arms want to give and his throat is raw from shouting but he won’t back down, won’t just lie here. “And that’s--that’s a hell of a way to show they care.”

Kinoc grabs him by the shoulders, tries to settle him back down. Auron will not have it, no matter how much it hurts. “We have to live here. We _all_ have to live here. What do you think it would mean for them if their leader defected?”

“That doesn’t matter!”

“Well it _should!_ ” Kinoc yells, then clutches his face in pain. Auron winces in sympathy--somewhat literally--and it stalls his anger, just long enough for Kinoc to curse. “Damn. Auron. Please.”

Auron gathers as much breath, as much calm as he can. It takes effort to push himself off the pallet, but this time Kinoc doesn’t try and stop him. Good. “You’re right. I should have kept a better handle on them. I thought they were _good people._ ”

“Don’t do this, Auron.”

“What did you expect me to do when you told me?”

“I don’t know, think? Rest? Apologize?”

Auron stands. His legs feel like jelly but he wills them steady, thinks he’ll be stable so long as he keeps moving. So he keeps moving, grabs a robe from the wall and his sword from the corner. He can’t get the robe over both shoulders, but that’s fine, he only needs one to keep it up. Even the soft cloth stings the weals on his back, keeps him moving. “Apologize for what?” he asks, belting the robe on, tight as he can handle.

Kinoc sits on the pallet, readjusts the tube in his nose. “For abandoning us,” he says, barely more than a whisper.

Auron slings his sword over his shoulder, swipes a few phials of potion from the shelf to deal with the pain. “I haven’t abandoned you,” he says, on his way out. “You drove me off. Remember that.”

And with that, he staggers out into the hall, leaving Kinoc and his protests behind.

*

It would be hard enough to run if Auron could move without his back breaking into spasms every step. His sword feels ten times as heavy as it should, and his bare feet are freezing on the temple floor. But aside from people looking askance at him for being only half-dressed, no one bars his way. And that’s all that matters right now--finding Yuna as soon as possible.

He makes his way to the hall of Braska’s room, finds the monks there on patrol. They aren’t his, but they still defer to him, even if everyone knows what happened yesterday. Shifts have changed by now, but he demands to know whether anyone’s been in or out of Braska’s room.

“The little girl left with a monk at the shift change,” they tell him. “We haven’t seen the h--her father, anywhere.”

Auron glowers. “Where did they go?”

“Can’t say, sir.”

“Can’t say or don’t know?”

“Don’t know. Sorry.”

Auron gives them as much of a prayer as his body will allow, and heads off from there.

It’s too much to hope that Rakta and the others just escorted Yuna to the healers, but Auron goes there next anyway, only stops to lean on the wall and catch his breath when he has to. It’s not far, but it definitely takes too long for him to get there--and once he does, he remembers that he has to hide his back, make sure the priests don’t just subdue him back into convalescence in the name of fulfilling their oath. For all he knows, they’ll pack him off to the infirmary if they get a look at his back, so Auron struggles back into his loose sleeve and covers it up the best he can. There’s no time to heal.

And, as it turns out, Yuna isn’t there either. Sister Gyuri definitely knows what’s wrong with Auron’s back, but covers her mouth, perceives the urgency in Auron’s tone for what it is.

“I thought she was with her father,” Gyuri says, eyes blown wide and panicked. “At the ceremony.”

“Has it started yet?”

“It should have. If she isn’t there, I don’t know where she’d be. Is everything all right, Brother Auron?”

He shakes his head, no, and that hurts but he can hide it. He thinks. “I’ll find her, and I’ll send word as soon as I can. Thank you. Praise be to Yevon.” He turns, starts down the hall again, this time toward the statuary.

“Wait,” Gyuri says, and then, while Auron’s still turning back to face her, “Everyone, give Brother Auron your best.”

He’s still only half-turned around when a half-dozen Cure spells wash over him, and by the time he sees their sources--all of the apprentices with their little staves, bowed in prayer with magic on their lips--he’s too surprised to speak. Gyuri waves her staff as well, and this time the cool energy of healing doesn’t dissipate after it washes over him--a regenerative spell, more advanced and constant than he’s ever felt.

“But Sister Gyuri,” one of the children asks, “aren’t we supposed to check first, to make sure nothing’s wrong inside?”

“We are,” Gyuri says, patting the child on the head. “But sometimes, it’s more important to keep going than to be whole. Remember that.”

It hurts less this time, inside and out, for Auron to bow and pray. The skin around his wounds is still sore and tight, probably scarred, but at least now he can walk without cringing or seizing up. Gyuri ushers the children back to their lessons, and Auron bolts down the hall as fast as he can.

*

The platform glides to a stop, and when Braska steps off it, it turns into a pillar again, sphere glowing on its crest. Braska leaves it behind, follows the now-solid path to another set of double doors, and the light of the spheres tapers off as he goes. Again, the doors open without his prompting, but this time, the boy with the hood isn’t beyond them.

This is a Chamber of the Fayth. Lady Egia described what he would do in here, of course, but the enormity of seeing one stalls Braska’s breath in his throat. The dark walls are carved with the holy alphabet on ornate plaques, but there are no statues to be seen--until he comes to the center of the room.

It isn’t a statue. It’s a relief, but too frozen, too once-alive to have been carved into the floor. A gilt ring frames a young man’s bare back, but his face is submerged in the stone as if he drowned here, died here, covered with a dragon’s-head helm. His arms are stretched into one scaled claw and one massive wing. It’s the wing of the dragon Lady Egia summoned when Sin attacked Luca three years ago, and Braska remembers its roar, its violent light.

The boy appears, hovers over the carving like a vision or a ghost. He scoffs, almost a laugh, all teenage petulance. “So you figured it out.”

Braska smiles, tight and tense, and sweeps an arm out at the floor. “I don’t suppose you mean about you.”

“About Yevon,” the boy says.

“I have a lot to figure out about Yevon,” Braska admits. “But yes. The machina are here because they were always here. Because the war with Zanarkand was never about them at all. It’s the church that condemns machina, not Yevon Himself. Otherwise he’d never let this temple stand.”

The lower half of the boy’s face contorts into a sardonic smile. “Are you sure about that?”

“No, but I have four more of you to ask,” Braska says.

The boy floats down to the edge of the relief, stands on the frame just in front of Braska. “You’re early. Usually the people who make it to me have already spoken to the others.”

Braska laughs. “I get the feeling I’ll be an unconventional summoner.”

“Maybe that’s what we need,” the boy says. “Pray for me. Call my soul, and learn my name. Then you can ask all the questions you like.”

He disappears--or perhaps he doesn’t, but his aspect as a child fades from view. And Braska takes up his staff and begins to dance, long and slow and patient, his breath only a whisper in the empty room.

*

The ceremony would be underway if Braska were there. That’s all Auron can hear of it: the Maesters sitting on their dais, Lady Egia pacing, and the raised lectern of the court of pronouncement empty. All it takes for him to know is one glance past the door. Braska isn’t there, and neither is Yuna, and from their tone they should have been ages ago.

And Auron has listened at this door many times through the years, posted outside it during trials and hearings and trusted with sanctity. He was here ten years ago, the day they condemned Braska and threw him out of the church. The irony of listening in, the day they should be promoting Braska without him there, isn’t lost on Auron.

“We should send for him,” Maester Kelk Ronso says, a deep rumble from high on the dais. “He needs to answer for himself.”

“No. He’s shown his true character.” Grand Maester Mika is on the highest point of the dais, of course, but his voice carries down loud and clear to Auron behind the door. “Fool us twice, shame to us all.”

“He wouldn’t miss this of his own volition,” Maester Gaehanne disagrees, from her place, a little lower and to the left. Relief springs in Auron’s chest, almost hard enough that his back protests it. She’s not against him out of hand. Auron exhales, louder than he meant to, but he’s sure no one in there hears it. “And seeking him out is better than waiting.”

Something rustles like branches in the wind, which must mean Maester Jyscal Guado is making a sweep of his hand. “I disagree,” he says, sure enough. “He will explain himself when he comes, if he comes. And if he does not, perhaps Lady Egia can offer an explanation on his behalf.”

“I can tell you it’s no show of humility,” Lady Egia says. “I say we wait another hour, or until someone comes with news. The fayth are restless. Perhaps it’s troubling him, though I didn’t think he was so sensitive yet.”

“And yet you tout him to us,” Mika says.

“It’s not sensitivity that makes a summoner, your Worship. It’s gumption. I’ve been telling you for years that he has that to spare. He’s still here after everything we’ve thrown at him. What does it lose you, to let him go?”

Mika sighs. “It would be one thing if he were penitent. But he is not.”

“And if he should fail, it would be his own fault,” Jyscal says.

And Mika cuts him off, “But if he should succeed--”

A crash at the anteroom door startles Auron, breaks him away from the wall with a hand on his sword.

“Hello!” someone yells--yells! in the heart of Bevelle--and hip-checks his way past the monks at the door. “Yeah, this looks all important but there ain’t anyone here.” He spits, rubs the stubble on his jaw. “Some Zanarkand.”

Auron gapes. It’s bad enough that Auron’s running about the temple in only a robe, but it’s an emergency, and this man has the audacity to come in without a shirt at all! It’s not even tied around his waist, he never had one to begin with, and the massive black tattoo on his chest is at least half hair. He hasn’t shaved, hasn’t cleaned himself, hasn’t even an inkling of the custom of respect. And he’s soaked, or drunk, or both, trailing water on the tile floor. 

And all of this is somehow less shocking than what in Yevon’s name he just said.

“Zanarkand?” Auron can’t help repeating, even if it will give him away.

The man looks at him, pulls his head back and forth like a bird, like he needs to refocus. “Yeah. Zanarkand. They said out there I’d find my way in here. That’s the most I can get out of anyone. Hit up the temple, they said, and this looks like a temple to me. What do you worship here, those glowing balls?”

If Auron weren’t injured and saving his strength, he’d punch this heathen right now. Honestly, he might punch him anyway. And he’s about to shout, _How dare you,_ when the voices of the Maesters rise in the chamber, arguing, about Braska. And his worthiness. And how long they should wait.

Auron’s already wasted too much time--and this might buy him more.

“Ask them,” he says, pointing to the door of the court, and charges past him. Let the Maesters deal with him, and maybe they’ll forget that Braska is detained, and be more forgiving when he finally arrives, when all this is resolved. “They’ll tell you about Zanarkand. One man in there lives at the base of the mountain.”

“Finally,” the drunk says, “I owe you one.” Instead of making a prayer, he swings out a hand and claps Auron on the back--right on the scars. Auron’s knees buckle, but he refuses to fall. And no amount of healing magic will take away the pain of force that direct and that strong. This drunk has an arm, and no qualms about using it.

Distasteful as he is, he’s difficult to walk away from. But if Auron sics him on the Maesters, he might buy Braska more time to get there--and more time to track Yuna down, and that’s what matters.

“Good luck,” Auron says, and leaves the drunk in the antechamber, already knocking at the Maesters’ doors. 

If Yuna isn’t here, there are only so many places that Rakta and the others would take her. If they’re that concerned with Braska’s choice, they have to be where they can eavesdrop on the Maesters too. And there isn’t a shortage of places where monks can hear everything, but there aren’t many paths connected to this room in particular. If the monks patrolling this hallway have seen nothing, there’s only one other place the captors can hear into it from: beneath. From the caverns of the condemned in the Via Purifico.

The thought of his own subordinates taking a child down there is enough to make Auron taste bile. But he’s sure they did it. If they aren’t here, they’re there, and that gives them the means to dispose of her if they--no. Auron refuses to think of it. He just pushes on toward the nearest entrance to the dungeons, the paths he’s led criminals down, never to return. Fiends lurk in the bowels of Bevelle, dangerous fiends, stronger than anything Auron’s fought on the roads. Even three monks lurking in the safest places down there can’t be counted on to protect a girl they already plan on killing.

By the time he gets down the corridor to the machina elevator, his fury burns enough to make him sweat.

*

Calling the soul of an aeon is exhausting but exhilarating, and Braska feels his heart beat stronger with every step. Even as his muscles tighten with fatigue and control, his will only gets stronger, his sight steadier. Pyreflies gather on the stone relief, peeking out through the dragon’s wings, and Braska calls them, wills them into himself. They don’t come straight to him: they follow the arc of his staff instead, like flowers caught in a gale, and Braska knows he’s not trying to send them but can’t help wondering if they’ll go anyway.

But the first pyrefly comes to him, winds through his hair and settles on the back of his neck, and the first thing Braska feels is _tired_.

He doesn’t let it slip into his steps, he refuses, but the fatigue is overwhelming. The fayth’s memories stretch out so long, so arduous, even as a child. He’s waited here a thousand years, called by summoner after summoner, and none of them give him the peace he requires. But this isn’t enough to know him, and Braska keeps dancing, reaches farther back, calls all the memories in the room into his arms.

A bright city, a machina city, rises out of the mountains. Everything is lights, not the cool light of spheres but the precision of _linliedc_ and contained lightning, lights that drown the stars. He remembers, or the fayth remembers, standing on a pier, watching a ship bound south, soldiers and summoners bound for war. He remembers jumping, and not flying but swimming toward the ship as fast as he could, stowing away, hiding among the soldiers and the crew, and _wanting_ , wanting so much to do his part, to do anything but sit and wait.

His father was a summoner. This boy became his fayth.

There is no room is Braska’s steps for horror or awe or even pity. He feels the boy’s devotion and desperation, and all he can allow is empathy. He watches the boy become the relief in the floor, the dreams of strength releasing the great dragon in his soul. And his father cries as he dances, and whispers a name when it is done.

“Zerom,” Braska says, and knows, as the last sight the boy sees, living, is the stone of the temple floor, the one place of peace in a city at war.

_You’re strong,_ Zerom says in his head, like laughter too soft to give voice. _You’ll be able to do it too._

“What you did?” Braska asks him, aloud, but no answer comes.

*

Auron finds the three monks exactly where he thought they’d be, but far from where he wished they were. Rakta stands guard at the entrance to one of the forerooms to the labyrinth, Houtta stands on a pillar with his ear pressed to the grate that connects to the courtroom. And Bappan has Yuna. With her hands tied, cowering in the corner but not crying, just waiting with her knees to her chest and her shoulders hunched in fear.

“I told you I don’t know!” Houtta groans, cleans out his ear with a fingertip. “They’re arguing with some drunk.”

“It’s probably _him_ ,” Rakta says, turns away from the door for one crucial moment. “Who else but a heretic would show up drunk to a meeting with the Maesters? Let’s just get this over with.”

Auron doesn’t care if he’s possibly outmatched, without armor. He doesn’t care if they have to speak for themselves to exonerate him. He doesn’t care if these wretched people are his subordinates, the men and women he’s responsible for grooming into Yevon’s service. 

If they want to serve Yevon, they can do it from the Farplane.

He yells and charges, and that’s all the warning Rakta gets. She doesn’t get to her sword in time, and Auron bashes his into her shoulder, right at the joint where her pauldron doesn’t cover it. She hits the floor screaming and Auron leaves her behind, pummels Houtta off the pillar and cuts him down in midair, and the force of his strike sends Houtta skidding to the far wall, disarmed and unconscious.

Bappan puts his hands up and surrenders immediately. “Sir! Auron, sir, I’m sorry, forgive me--”

Auron hefts him up by the collar, his neck against the hilt of Auron’s sword. Bappan’s broad enough to be heavy, but let him choke on his own weight. Let him saw his own throat through. “How dare you.” Auron’s voice should echo, down here, but he only hears it swollen, trapped in his ears. “How dare you call yourself a warrior, you _worm_.”

“It was Rakta’s idea!”

“I don’t care.” And it’s true, Auron doesn’t. He pulls back enough to slam the hilt of his sword into Bappan’s jaw and shut him up--and even though he’s still conscious, he’s not going to be speaking coherently anytime soon.

“I knew it,” Rakta coughs from the doorway, staggering to her feet. “I knew you were conspiring with him!”

Auron doesn’t let her say anything more, just charges her again, reels back to slash across her chest. Broken arm or not, she still has the space to dodge, and she rushes back out of his range, bolts for the mouth of the labyrinth. Auron’s on her heels, ready to cut her down and leave her for the fiends, like all the unrighteous down here--

“Auron!” Yuna cries, “Sir Auron, don’t go!”

He stops in his tracks.

Yuna’s still cowed in the corner, and now she’s crying, even if she wasn’t before. Auron puts down his sword, leaves it on the floor and turns to her. She’s covering her eyes with her bound hands, like they’re playing Needletime, but doesn’t try to stop him from coming forward. He kneels to her level, holds her because he doesn’t know what else to do.

“I’m sorry,” she babbles in both languages, over and over, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to go,” but Auron just lets her bury her face in his robes and cry.

“It’s not your fault,” he says, cups the back of her head and taps her, twice. “Remember that. It’s not your fault.”

*

Returning from the trial is much easier than solving it, and Braska simply takes the glowing platform straight to the cloister doors. They part for him into the statuary, and it’s impossible to tell what time it is or how long he’s been there, but he’s not alone. Priests go through their devotions, penitents pray, and Braska didn’t mean to interrupt anyone but he supposed it can’t be helped.

For a moment, even the hymn of the fayth is silent.

Then the cries of “Heretic!” start up, right on schedule.

Braska submits to them, lets the monks arrest him. He was planning on going to the courtroom anyway, he might as well accept the escort they’ve offered. And he _was_ out of line and out of order, completing Bevelle’s trial before the Maesters even gave him formal leave to go to Besaid. He’ll accept their reprimand, and explain everything, with more graciousness than they deserve.

It turns out, by the high sunlight streaming through the windows in the corridor on the way to the courtroom, that Braska’s two, perhaps three hours late. They certainly haven’t waited for him this long, so he’ll be interrupting someone else, but, patience. Patience and strength: the only way to deal with those you know hate you.

The monks stop at the door of the courtroom, just in time for it to open from the inside. Braska thinks, for a moment, that that’s been happening a lot today, but it turns out that he’s only just in time for someone to be thrown _out_ , a rough-looking man dragged thrashing and shouting down the hall.

Well, the Maesters must be in an excellent mood.

Braska steels his shoulders, breathes a word of trust to Zerom and the fayth, and walks in to face his fate.

*


	9. Chapter 9

Braska has never liked the courtroom. The floor is so dark that it’s almost a void, and once he winds up the stairs to the defendant’s dais it feels like the ground drops out entirely, that one wrong step and he’d wind up in the sewers. That’s probably an intentional feature of the architecture. He remembers, ten years ago, thinking he was supposed to be thankful that they didn’t just cast him down into the Via Purifico and have done with him.

He knows they couldn’t now. That trust makes the room only a little less awful.

He settles in, nods to Lady Egia at the foot of the dais, and makes a prayer to all of the Maesters in turn. Jyscal, the lowest and the youngest but dour and reserved; then Gaehanne of the warrior monks, who looks all too ready to pass judgment on him; Kelk Ronso, whose expression is as always impossible to read beyond his fur and whiskers, stands next-highest with his paws folded over each other, as if to crack his knuckles.

Grand Maester Mika sits the highest of the Maesters, of course, and glowers down at Braska with his eyes in thick shadow. “You’ve tested our generosity,” he says, old but unwavering. “We’ve been informed that you’ve just emerged from the Cloister of Trials. Is this true?”

“It is,” Braska says. “I cannot deny the fayth who summoned me.”

“Insolent child.” Mika tucks his hands into his sleeves, turns up his chin. “The fayth, summoning you? How would you know?”

“A child came to me as I prayed in the statuary,” Braska says, careful to keep his tone steady, without accusation. “He told me to follow him, and he walked to the Cloister doors. When I approached them, they opened, and I went through the trial on my own and accepted the blessing of the fayth.”

The Maesters clearly don’t know what to say to that, look among themselves as best they’re able. In the end, it’s Kelk who looks down--not to Braska, to Egia--and asks, “Is that possible?”

Egia nods, and turns to Braska. “Describe the child.”

“A boy, eleven or twelve years old. Dark like an islander, dressed in a hood with a golden wheel on its back. I couldn’t see his face, but I know his eyes are gold. He came from Zanarkand before the war.”

Egia shuts her eyes, purses her lips into nearly a smile. “He’s telling the truth,” she says, glancing up at the dais. “Bahamut’s fayth appeared the same to me. You can ask any summoner who has completed Bevelle’s trial to vouch for that. I’ll send for Belgemine if you want her to corroborate this. Or you can ask your boy, Jyscal. He’d know.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Mika says, and Jyscal lowers his hand, retreats back behind his lectern. “So the fayth called you. That does not explain why you shirked us in the first place.”

Braska reaches into his robes for the last ransom note, and extends it over the rail of his platform, toward Egia. “I have received threats on my life and the life of my child, contingent on my refusing the call to fight Sin. I’m sure you can imagine my trepidation.”

Grand Maester Mika was never a father, nor Kelk Ronso, but the others are visibly taken aback. Jyscal in particular looks--well, he’s always green, but the veins in his face tighten and sour, and his long fingers curl around the edge of his lectern it what might be a Guado gesture of indignation.

Gaehanne grits her teeth, takes a harsh breath that’s almost a slice through the chamber air. “How long as this been going on?”

“Since I came here,” Braska says. “I’ve said nothing. They only began to target my daughter last week, when it became clear that I might be able to leave. Only, since I told no one about the decision except my intended guardian, the only way the word could have gotten out was through this audience chamber. Which leads me to believe that you deliberated my fate in the presence of my attackers.”

“We invited no others in,” Jyscal says. “It is not how things are done here.”

Gaehanne shakes her head. “Just because they weren’t in here doesn’t mean they couldn’t listen. I’ve been in Bevelle nearly all my life. I know how word gets around. Brother Braska, I apologize. While it was certainly not our intent for word of this to get out, I can assure you that it did. Is that your only proof of these threats?”

“It is. I’ve burned the rest of them.”

If Braska didn’t know better, he’d swear Mika rolled his eyes, but Jyscal drums his fingers on the rail. “I know how that is,” he says, and if anyone was going to argue, they certainly won’t now. “Brother Braska: if it is indeed as you say, and your child’s life was threatened, it is not my belief that you should be chastised.”

“But we must prove it,” Mika says, as if it’s the final word on the subject. “And if we find that you have deceived us, you will never leave Bevelle alive. Have I made myself clear?”

Braska is about to say so, _yes,_ when down in the void the doors crash open again. Light blasts in from the hall, and Braska turns to face it--

\--and Yuna bounds up the platform, into his arms, and nearly bowls him over.

“Byby,” she cries into his robes, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

“It’s fine,” he says, and hates that he has to keep to Spiran here but does, holds her tight and strokes her hair and knows that he must let her go, but not yet. “It’s fine, you’re safe now.”

“Still sorry,” she sniffles. “They were like Sir Auron. I thought they were like Sir Auron.”

“It’s fine, it’s not your fault. You didn’t know.”

Another thud pounds out from the doorway, and then and only then does Braska look up. Auron is there, hair undone and a mess all over, wearing only a robe and his sword, and he’s just flung one of his half-conscious subordinates into the courtroom. “Your Worships,” Auron growls, “I think this reprobate can explain it better than any of us,” and kicks the monk on the small of his back. “Go on, Bappan. Tell them.”

Bappan does, but Braska only hears it as if he’s underwater, waiting to surface.

*

They finally dismiss Braska, Yuna, and Auron nearly three hours later. There are other witnesses to hear, Rakta to hunt down, and the Maesters are almost certainly going to be arguing this for days to come. Auron is excused from his duties, and Yuna won’t leave Braska’s arms, so the three of them retreat to Braska’s room together, and Egia gives one final word to Braska before she, too, disappears into the temple for her part in the hearing.

“I don’t know about you,” Braska says, once they’re down the hall, “but I think we all need some tea.”

Auron almost chokes on his laughter. It feels like so long since anything’s had humor in it, so long since he’s had the right to find life absurd. And laughter hurts, the same way shouting hurts, and the regenerative spell that Gyuri cast wore off long ago, so pain races up his back and the laughter tapers off. He calms himself as soon as he can, but Braska’s already noticed.

“Auron, are you wounded?”

“I’ll explain,” he says. “In private.”

Braska accepts that, thankfully, and doesn’t press until they make it back to the room. Once their inside, Yuna detaches herself from Braska’s side only to curl up on the nearest cushions, and Braska goes for the kettle and the stove. Apparently the meaning of _private_ is understood as _without even Yuna_ , at least for now, and Auron settles in, rakes his hair off his face and knots it around itself so he doesn’t feel like a complete ruffian.

Braska notices, laughs. “Here,” he says, “let me,” and once the kettle is on the stove he comes to Auron’s side, settles behind him. Auron freezes--considering what he dreamed the other day, and even part of last night through the pain, he can’t be blamed--but Braska just combs his fingers through Auron’s hair and winds it into a quick low plait like his own, though shorter and thinner of course. Auron sighs, slumps forward.

“Your back,” Braska whispers, and the hiss of the kettle means Yuna probably doesn’t hear. “What happened?”

Auron hopes he can keep his voice just as low. “Gaehanne flogged me for fighting with Kinoc,” he says. “I deserved it, don’t worry.”

“Last night?”

Auron nods.

Braska finishes the braid. It’s not bound at the tail, but it seems tight enough to hold, and Auron feels slightly more whole, at least, slightly more together. “You don’t want Yuna to know.”

“No. She’ll worry.”

The kettle’s whistle peals high, and Braska gives Auron’s shoulder a quick pat as he stands, goes over to deal with it. Yuna scurries over to him as well, nestles against him while he pours the tea and the rest of the water and cream powder over rice to make porridge. And after that, they eat in near-silence, Yuna half asleep and dropping her spoon into the bowl. She doesn’t finish her tea. Neither does Auron, but that’s because once he starts eating he can’t put the bowl down.

Braska finally remarks on it, smiles and shakes his head. “I wish I had an appetite right now.”

“You should eat,” Auron says, once he swallows. “Even if you don’t want to.” There’s no telling what tomorrow will bring, and both condemnation and promotion call for haste.

“Perhaps,” Braska agrees, though he puts more porridge into Auron’s and Yuna’s bowls instead of his own. Auron just raises an eyebrow at him, but is too hungry to protest too much. He’s not even sure the porridge has a taste to it, but it’s necessary.

A few minutes later, Yuna nods off at the board.

Braska catches her barely in time, and she doesn’t quite land with her face in the bowl, but Braska chuckles to himself and catches her. There’s no point in changing for bed, so Braska just bundles her up and carries her to her cushions and tells her, “Don’t worry, I’m here. We’re here.”

“Promise, Byby?”

“Promise. And I’ll be here in the morning.”

“Sir Auron too?” she clings to Braska’s sleeves, like she intends to use them for a blanket. “Please, Sir Auron? Stay too?”

Braska looks to Auron, and smiles. There’s every reason to stay: for one thing, Auron’s exhausted, still excused from duty for his injuries, and even if he weren’t the hearing would certainly absolve him. Yuna needs protection, if Rakta is still on the loose. Truce or no truce, the thought of going back to his room with Kinoc turns his stomach. But Auron knows he shouldn’t, that after everything else, after Kinoc and the hearing and today, the mess of _today,_ what little good will he has with his colleagues will fly out the window.

To the fiends with their good will.

“Yes,” he says, coming over to Yuna’s side as well. “I’ll be here in the morning,” and while her smile glows with happiness and relief, Braska’s is even more welcome, even more beautiful.

She doesn’t need a story to sleep, and tucks in peacefully, wrapped in her cushions and the hem of Braska’s robe. Auron eats and finishes his tea, and Braska extricates himself eventually, but doesn’t turn down the lamp.

He reaches for Auron’s back, again, and says, “Show me. Please.”

Carefully, Auron takes down the shoulders of his robe, leaves the rest belted around his waist. And he shuts his eyes, so he doesn’t have to see Braska’s smile contort into worry or shame. He can feel it, in the sudden chill of the air, the tentative sweep of his hands. Even the cold energy of his magic, a spell to strip the poisons and another to mend the skin, somehow carry tension and a gentle kind of shame.

And his voice, the quiet disbelieving, “Oh, Auron,” that ghosts over the back of Auron’s neck is like everything Auron wants, exactly how he didn’t want it.

“It’s not your fault,” Auron says. “I told you, I deserved it. It’s the standard punishment for brawling.”

“Still.” Braska’s voice hitches. “I’ve...never seen that on anyone else here.”

“I didn’t give the healers enough time to take it slowly,” Auron says. “It’ll only scar because I ran. That’s not your fault.”

Braska doesn’t disagree. But his hands are still tentative and cool on Auron’s scars, his magic glowing faintly just out of Auron’s sight. And once that dissipates, another pressure settles at the nape of Auron’s neck, warmer than Braska’s hands but cool, dry, almost tickling.

Auron twists, just enough to look over his shoulder, and Braska is leaning his forehead against Auron’s back, right where it meets his neck. It’s not a kiss, not nearly as desperate as Auron remembers that sunset on the roof, but the memories are so similar, so painful, that Auron can’t help looking away. But Braska stays, holds him, and his hands shiver on Auron’s bare shoulders.

“I can still ask your forgiveness,” Braska whispers, his breath warmer than his skin, right on the ridge of Auron’s spine.

“You can.” Auron smiles, as much as he’s able. “But I’d still say you don’t have to.”

Braska laughs, tenses his grip on Auron’s arms. “That seems to happen to us a lot.”

“Because you apologize too much.”

“So do you.”

It’s true, and humorous, but Auron doesn’t laugh, not quite. If he did, it might shatter the air, cover the room in shards.

Eventually, Braska lets go, and makes sure Auron has pillows to sleep on, a spare blanket that isn’t a tapestry from the wall. Auron accepts this, thanks him, and sets up camp by the door. Braska turns the lamp off, and thanks him, and tells him goodnight.

It might be the food and the stress and the magic, but it’s the easiest sleep Auron’s had in months.

*

“I must say,” Gaehanne starts, almost as soon as her office door is closed, “these days, with you, it’s one surprise after another.”

Auron doesn’t deny it. Or contrast it with all of the surprises that have been thrown at him as challenges to meet, for that matter. He just stands, lets himself be judged, for now. Gaehanne deserves that, after speaking up for Braska at the hearing. The Maesters still deliberate his case, but evidently that’s not the only issue at hand.

After all, Auron had a part in this as well.

Gaehanne goes on, rounds her low desk to sit and indicates that Auron should sit as well. “What you did for Brother Braska was commendable, even if the circumstances were in the worst of taste. Just in general, you’ve stuck by him in spite of the reprisals against you. We still haven’t found Rakta and I doubt we ever will, but Houtta and Bappan both confessed that one of their motives was securing your place with the order, so you’ve definitely instilled respect in them.”

“That’s a rich way of showing it,” Auron can’t help saying.

“They’re misguided,” Gaehanne chides. “They’re young. You certainly remember.”

Auron does. It wasn’t so long ago. But was he misguided, or simply on a different path from the start?

“Regardless,” Gaehanne says, “every time you come under fire, there’s a purity at the heart of it that I never expect. You fought with Kinoc because he questioned your devotion to Yevon. You couldn’t abide the injustice and despicable methods of your own subordinates. You held to your convictions that a child was innocent despite the treasons of her father, and you’ve also made an effort to help Brother Braska redeem himself in Yevon’s eyes. That’s what surprises me, Auron. After so many years of waiting for you to learn to look outside yourself before you look in, you finally did it. You’ve grown up, Auron. Beyond my expectations.”

Auron finally sits down, in part because he’s not sure he can stand for this. “Thank you, sir.”

“I used to assume that you’d simply get stronger until we didn’t know what to do with you but keep you on the front lines.” Gaehanne smiles, runs a hand over her scalp. “But you’re meant for more than that, Auron. And the Maesters have agreed to my choice to promote you. You start as master-at-arms as soon as you’ve recovered. I’ll train you personally.”

Wait, _what?_

“Of course, the Maesters have insisted that you marry first. Don’t worry, that’s typical of them, and someone should be able to hold the prestige of your position. I did the same thing. You’ve already approached me about possibly renouncing your vow of celibacy, so that won’t be a problem, and High Priest Leroc’s daughter is of age. You may have seen her at Djose, she’s her father’s adjutant--”

“Are you insane?” Auron gathers himself to stand. He can’t sit for this. He won’t. “Asking me to renounce my vow for _politics?_ ”

“Auron!”

“No, sir. I refuse! After everything that’s happened, you think I have any desire to--”

“Auron, stand down!”

He shuts up, certainly, but doesn’t make a move to sit.

“I’ll ignore the fact that you just questioned my sanity. You’re overwrought. Perhaps it was too early to suggest this to you.”

“You didn’t suggest it! You assumed I’d take it.”

“Who wouldn’t?” She glowers up at him, hands curled to fists, clearly just as angry as he is but under much better control. “I know there’s honor in being a guardian, but think about your future. There’s no _future_ in Zanarkand.”

“There’s a future for Spira! That’s what I serve, not myself.”

Gaehanne has the gall to laugh. “I can’t tell if you’re too good at this life, or just awful. Think, Auron. Think of how much good you could do here.”

“I would, if I could get beyond what you just told me to do.”

“Is marriage really so abhorrent?”

“It is if it’s only for property!”

“And you’d rather it be for lust? For covetousness?” Gaehanne gets up from the desk, fists at her side, and Auron knows he’s crossed a line but no, she’s still wrong. “Can you even hear yourself? If it’s something you have to do to make a difference, it’s despicable, but slaking your lust on a friend is fine by you?”

“I’ve done no such thing.”

“You forget I have eyes everywhere, Auron. Don’t lie.”

“I have done no such thing,” he says again, clearer, slower, louder. “I serve Yevon, not this church of hypocrites and opportunists! You think what I did for Lord Braska was worthy of respect? Any decent person should have done it! And a decent person would never have subjected him to this in the first place. He committed no crime, _no_ treason, and you say that I deserve respect and commendation for treating him like a person? And you say you have eyes everywhere, but did nothing to stop any of the abuse he’s suffered for three years? Damn your promotion, sir, and damn you!”

“Get out,” Gaehanne says.

That’s all. Two words, a clear order, said softly and calmly, and everything else in the room hits Auron at once: the chill air on Auron’s face, the pale light spearing through the red haze in his eyes, his hands curled to fists and his throat burning. He said that, all of that, and can’t take it back, and everything is over, now. Everything is done.

He bows to Gaehanne, and makes her a prayer, sure it will be his last to her. “Praise be to Yevon,” he says. “I thank you for all you’ve taught me.”

She prays to him in kind, but says absolutely nothing. So he leaves, and that’s that, and the door shuts behind him.

The monks standing guard stare forward, through him, as if he isn’t there at all.

*

Auron spends his first day of medical leave the way he’s spent most of the others through the years: alone, in meditation. He doesn’t go back to the infirmary, since between Braska and Gyuri his back is as well as it’s going to get. The possibility of running into Kinoc in their room isn’t at all appealing, and it would be inappropriate to return to Braska’s room just now. But there is no shortage of places for him to go, and Auron eventually settles on a pillar beneath a bridge, not too far to where he met Yuna three years ago. He waits there until sunset, lets the entire day move on with the current.

When he emerges, hours later, the anger hasn’t quite left him but it pushes against him less, as if it’s tempered, as if the river has smoothed its edges and bared the patterns beneath. Gaehanne is wrong, whatever her intentions. That’s the conclusion Auron comes to, and hours of meditation don’t diminish it. Even if he lost his temper, and that’s shameful, it doesn’t excuse what she offered.

_We all have to live here,_ Kinoc said.

The answer to that is clear. _No. I don’t._

He returns to mess, with the others getting food before the night rounds. When he extends his bowl to the ladler, he is soundly ignored, so he simply takes the ladle and serves himself. Since it’s from the same pot as everyone else’s, Auron doesn’t think anyone’s spat in it or pulled any of the pranks they used to pull as children, but he eats carefully all the same.

The others talk, share tips and stories and grouse about the late shift. It would be more frightening if they never looked in his direction at all, but some do, especially the initiates: surreptitious, sneaking glances that Auron feels more than sees. But he doesn’t hear his name, or even the curses they all use for Braska. He doesn’t exist.

It’s as if the entire temple has taken a vow of silence against him and him alone.

They all know. Of course they all know. Auron wasn’t exactly quiet when he told Maester Gaehanne where she and the Church of Yevon could go.

He does go back to the room eventually, and Kinoc isn’t there, but there’s no note, no indication of what shift he’s on. It’s not too early to sleep, but Auron isn’t tired. He could go to the archives and find a sphere or a book, join the chanters, shadowbox. Anything, really. He could. He doesn’t.

None of it is right. None of it is his place anymore, and it’s his own fault.

*

Yuna has a much time easier sleeping tonight than last. Every few minutes, Braska looks up from his book, to the edges of the sphere-light, and Yuna is burrowed into the cushions and blankets, only her little nose peeping out of the cloth. She doesn’t stir, probably doesn’t dream, at least not right now.

Braska smiles, marks his page, just watches her for a moment. Remty would be proud of her. She was never a difficult child, though even now Braska still has trouble knowing when she’s holding herself apart to be polite and when she’s genuinely wary. But she’s so strong, and so smart, and Sister Gyuri promises that no one will ever begrudge her place among the priestesses. She’ll be all right. If she can survive the horror of yesterday, she’ll bear up well without him--and better, after he brings the Calm.

He shakes his head, turns back to the book, finds his place in the pages. Of course his thoughts have run maudlin, it’s only natural, but a part of him still hopes that he’ll be able to look at his daughter once more before he leaves, without his calling to Zanarkand looming over them both.

He could--no. It’s no place for a child. He would never be so selfish as to take her with them.

Well, clearly this book isn’t holding his attention.

He should get to bed, anyway. He sets down the book on the nearest cushion, stretches to dim the lantern. He’s going to miss this room, he thinks, in spite of everything wrong with it. It’s become home, in its own way.

The knock at the door is soft, almost imperceptible. If it weren’t dark he may not have heard it at all. But it’s three crisp, courteous knocks, as if someone knows or cares that the lights are out, and clearly not a mistake. And someone nailing a horrible note would have been louder, certainly.

So Braska goes to the door, opens it a crack.

Auron has his fist raised to knock again. Then he lowers it, and his head, and doesn’t look Braska in the eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he says, quiet. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I wasn’t asleep, don’t worry.” Braska darts a quick glance at Yuna--still asleep, so he opens the door a little further. Auron’s come alone, of course, but he’s carrying a parcel, and once enough light from the hall seeps in Braska sees just what it is.

Auron’s brought his armor, and isn’t wearing it. His armor, his sword, his hunting knife, and his only change of clothes. All he legally owns.

“I don’t want to impose,” Auron says. “But please. Can I stay?”

Something about how he says it, about how his knuckles whiten around all he carries, leads Braska to believe that he doesn’t just mean _tonight_.

Braska lets the door swing open, and pulls Auron close, holds him and everything he’s brought in his arms. Auron stiffens, but doesn’t drop anything, and Braska doesn’t let go either.

“Of course,” Braska whispers, into the crook of Auron’s shoulder. “You always have a place with me.”

Eventually, he lets his arms down, helps Auron carry his things into the room. There will be time for explanations in the morning, if Auron wants to give them, but for now, there’s no need. Braska turns the lantern back on, dim but enough, and Auron takes the same place he chose by the door last night, the same cushions, the same blanket that Braska left out. He props his sword against the wall, sheathed but within reach, and turns to Braska once it’s settled. “My lord,” he whispers, “forgive me. I’ve never asked how you stand it.”

“I wish you didn’t have to.”

Auron nods, still not quite meeting Braska’s eyes, and settles down, draws the blanket up to his chest. “The same goes for you. But that goes without saying.”

Braska can’t help but smile at that, laden and wry as it seems.

It’s been only three days since what happened on the temple roof: three trying, exhausting days, but still only three of them. It’s a terrible time to bring up what happened, and Braska knows it. It may never be time to bring it up, but just looking at Auron, tightly wound and smaller than he’s ever seemed in that blanket, that corner, Braska knows that the choice lies with him.

Well, they’re going to have a long journey together. Maybe that kiss was only borne of desperation. Time, Braska thinks, time and more important things than this. Time will tell.

Braska asks, before he turns the lantern off again, and Auron assents. But in the darkness that follows, it takes Braska far too long coax himself to sleep.

*


	10. Chapter 10

Braska has much more to settle for the pilgrimage than Auron ever would. But Braska has training, as does Yuna, and Auron is left to the room alone more often than not, which means all the sorting is left to him. He doesn’t mind--it’s a small thing in exchange for staying here and crowding the room in the first place. (Not that Braska would ever say it was an imposition, but Auron knows that he’s cut into Braska’s last days with his daughter, and that even if he’s welcome here he’s still not what Braska needs, not right now.)

But what Braska needs right now is all his belongings sorted, and that’s the least Auron can do. Things that will return to the temple’s ownership make up the largest section, of course: all the cushions, all the tapestries, the board and the stove. All the things Braska is leaving to Yuna make up the next pile, and though it’s not much, it’s still more than Auron’s ever had: the kettle and the bowls and silverware, the shelf of tea and spices, most of Braska’s books and spheres.

In the end, the pile of things that Braska intends to simply throw or give away is larger than the one of things they’re taking. Provisions, of course, and the means of carrying them, but even that isn’t much for two men with hunting experience; his staff and potions, and Auron’s sword and armor; changes of clothes for them both; gifts for the high priests at the four remaining temples; the Al Bhed primer he used to teach Auron, in case they find time for more study on the road, which Auron hopes they will: and two spheres. Auron’s watched them both.

He helped take the first, two days ago, when Braska and Yuna were playing by the river. She asked him to show her a summoner’s sending dance, and he did. But the sphere is of Yuna, first watching, then trying to follow him, with a branch instead of her staff. Auron tucks the sphere into one of Braska’s travel packs, wrapped neatly in a scarf.

The other, he only saw last night, when Braska told him about it. Auron cradles it in his hands now, shifts them to activate the image and the sound.

Remty is lovely. Auron said so last night, and he stands by it now. She holds the sphere so it can capture her face, but it isn’t fully centered, and shows more of the right side of her face than the left. But she’s very pretty, fair-haired and slight with rounded cheeks and bright green eyes that the water of the sphere can’t dampen.

She speaks, whispering and laughing, in Al-Bhed. Auron can’t follow all of it, but it starts with, _Good morning, you two! Look at you sleepy-heads over there, sunning like cyineyhc,_ and she twists the sphere to show Braska asleep in a chair by Yuna’s little bed. Yuna, barely three years old, is peacefully asleep, but Braska is a rumpled mess, as if he keeled over in the chair and couldn’t be moved. Their house wasn’t so large, but the light through the windows is bright and clear, even in the water of the sphere. Remty turns the sphere back on herself. _I have to go to the ship soon,_ she goes on, _but I’ll wake you up first, don’t worry. I just wanted to get this down._

She leans in, says it in Spiran, like a secret. _I love you!_

Her nose and eyes crinkle when she smiles, just like Yuna’s. Or Yuna’s is just like hers.

Auron powers the sphere down, sets it in the same pack as the other one, and tries not to think about this. Jealousy is unbecoming. And unfair. Despicable. Even if he’s in disgrace with the order, he’s still a monk, and covetousness has no place in the heart of a monk. Ever.

There’s not much more to sort after that, so Auron starts rolling the tapestries, one at a time. The room is worse without them, colder, emptier, not at all like the life that Braska and Yuna have tried to build in it. But that life was temporary, wasn’t it. All of this is.

A knock on the door interrupts him, and Auron nearly unrolls the tapestry. It’s not the rattle of a nail hammering in, just two loud raps. “Come in,” he says, because anyone who would knock on Braska’s door wouldn’t balk at the sight of him here, not now.

“I can’t,” Lady Egia calls from the other side, “my hands are full. You have legs, get up and open it.”

Auron drops the tapestry and immediately rushes over to comply. He pushes the door open, and Lady Egia stands aside, her arms full of a chaos of purple and grey cloth, her staff angled awkwardly at her side. “Forgive me, my lady,” Auron says, and takes the cloth from her, holds the door with his foot so she can come inside if she wishes.

Evidently, she does, totters past him using her staff like a cane. “He’s not here?”

“No, my lady.” Now that she’s inside, Auron steps in as well, lets the door shut behind him. He can’t really offer her a chair, since there isn’t one, but she settles in on a doubled cushion, the tallest in the room. “He’s out with Yuna.”

“Glad to see he has his priorities straight,” she chides, but clarifies, honest if caustic, “it’s always better to leave the practical matters to the guardians. You _are_ guarding him, aren’t you?”

Auron holds the bundle of cloth close, nods over it. “I am.”

“It’s the order’s loss,” Egia says. “Not yours. You could have shaken things up for them, I’ll bet. Why do the mad ones always tag along with us?”

Not sure whether he should be insulted or not, Auron holds his tongue and keeps his head bowed. He really needs to control his outbursts in the face of authority, and he knows it, especially now. “I don’t know, my lady.”

“You remind me of one of mine.” Egia says, cracks her neck. The snap echoes palpably off the bare walls. “My sister Ivaln. She tried to bring our entire house with us when we left. I didn’t have enough socks, she said. _Socks_ ,” she repeats, a tsk through her teeth. “As if blisters would stop me from going.”

Auron can’t help cracking a smile at that, uneasy as it feels. “They won’t stop him either. But he should be warm.”

Egia sighs. “Guardians. You’re all insane. Let me tell you something, young man. You’re not the one who sees him to Zanarkand. If he’s going to make it at all, he’ll see himself there. Your job is to make sure he still wants to go through with it when he does.”

There’s a flash of indignation behind Auron’s eyes, but clarity comes after. She’s right. Braska’s strong, stronger than Auron when it comes to devotion and perseverance. Auron’s disgrace is proof enough of that. Braska was cast out, but Auron is running away, and Braska came back but Auron probably never will, even if he survives the journey. “I know,” he says, hanging his head. “But he still wants me there.”

“I don’t doubt that.” Egia’s eyebrow peaks, just once, looking Auron up and down in a way that is patently uncomfortable. “Just make sure he doesn’t lose sight of the end.”

“I will.” Awkwardly, he readjusts the bundle of cloth in his arms. “Is this for him?”

“Yes. They were mine. He should look the part. But I have places to be. People to train, in case he fails. Just make sure he gets them.”

Auron nods, and lets the cloth unroll. It’s a layered robe, scalloped panels of silk so that if one section tears it’s easily replaced or repaired without sacrificing the entire garment. They’re brighter than the acolyte robes that Braska’s worn for years, and Auron envisions him in these, with his hair like a silver river over the contours. It’ll suit him so much better. “Thank you.”

“It’s his place to thank me, not yours. See if you can get yourself something fitting too. It won’t do to have you looking like nothing next to this.”

“I’ll try.”

“Do more than try.”

Auron looks up from the robes, finds Egia’s eyes. They’re narrow, and so is her mouth, sour and tight. How many people has she trained and sent to die, since failing herself? How many of them have been her best, her brightest, her most determined. And the answer to _how many of them have succeeded_ is clear: none.

For all she says that guardians are insane, summoners must be even madder, to keep trying, to keep breaking themselves on the wall that is Sin.

“I have to,” Auron agrees. “So I will.”

*

Braska won’t miss this view. Lovely as it is up here on the spire at sunset, he’s seen it without hope, and with, and now that he’s seen both he need never come up to the temple roof again. And he never will. Not this view, not this city. There is no need for him to ever come through Bevelle again, and there is no place for regret, not here.

They can set out at any time now.

Evrae wheels through the clouds. In the back of Braska’s mind, the aeon Zerom snickers to himself, an unconscious comparison. _You’re stronger,_ Braska tells him, _I’m sure of it,_ and the feeling of a smile wells up in Braska’s thoughts. He’s unsure if it’s his own, the dragon’s, or both.

“I thought I might find you here.” When Braska turns around from the view, Auron’s halfway up the stairs behind him. Auron stops, like he’s seeing something he can’t quite let go of either. “Yuna’s back from her session. She brought a gift for you from Sister Gyuri.”

“I’m glad.” Auron’s looking less worried, less uncomfortable than he has for the past several days. He still hasn’t put his armor on, and it’s strange to see him outside without it, but he’s carrying himself as if it’s still there. Maybe Braska should buy him something new, on the road. Or before they leave. Auron’s definitely not comfortable asking. 

“Are you all right, my lord?” Well, the discomfort is back in Auron’s voice again, urgent and quiet but definitely perceptible.

Braska smiles at him, as reassuringly as he can. “I am. Don’t worry. But I do need your knife for a moment,” he says without thinking.

“My lord--”

“Ah. No, don’t worry. I only...” He tries again. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to do. I promise, it’s nothing painful.”

Auron finishes scaling the stairs, comes to stand behind and nearly beside him. “Are you sure I can’t do it for you?”

“No, not this,” he says. “It’s a summoner thing. I have to prove to myself I’m going.”

Auron stares into the sunset for one long moment, but reaches down and takes up his hunting knife. He hangs his head, looks at it before he hands it to Braska, trusting but awkward, his hand shaking a little as he lets go.

“I promise,” Braska says again. “Don’t worry.”

He can’t see Auron’s reaction to that, because he shuts his eyes. He can’t see behind his head anyway, and takes care of gathering up his braid by feel. He winds it around his hand, pulls it away from his scalp. He hears, dimly, Auron gasp and take a step away, as he raises the knife to the back of his neck and pushes it up through his hair.

It’s harder than he thought it would be, slicing through the braid. He saws back and forth, lets the ridges of the knife gather the strands and break them, and more than once the cool blade slides against his scalp, rips hairs out by the root. But he gets through it, at last, and when he lets his hands hang at his sides all the weight that pulled at the back of his neck is in his hand instead, and short strands scratch his cheeks, light enough to twitch in the wind.

He reaches out his left hand and, without looking, drops the braid off the roof, down to the canal. It’s the clean fall he thought he’d take, a few weeks ago, and sure enough the braid spirals down painlessly, without scraping the temple walls. It hits the water, too far down to hear and a barely visible splash, and Braska shakes the last stray strands off his hand, lets them drift into the wind.

_I should have done this long ago, Remty,_ he prays, silent, as if a memory could guide the words. _I’m sorry._

Auron exhales, loud enough to snap the air, and the inhale catches in his throat. Braska turns to him, smiles, runs a hand to push the short strands off his face. They’re longer in front than in back. That’s going to be a change. “That bad?”

“No,” Auron whispers. “Different. Rough. But not bad.”

Braska hands the knife back to him. Their fingers meet on the hilt, and Braska remembers that kiss, right here, all the tension and pain in Auron’s touch. It’s still there, still under the sweat on his fingertips. But he shouldn’t press or pry, not now. “Help me neaten it up, later?” he asks, anything to diffuse the tension.

Auron laughs, startled, and sheathes the knife. “Do I look like someone who knows what to do with his hair?”

“So yours is naturally neat like that?”

“You call this neat?”

Braska laughs, and Auron sputters, and sure enough, the strain abates as they make their way down the stairs. “Neater than any disgraced ruffian I’ve ever met.”

“You haven’t met many disgraced ruffians,” Auron counters.

“I’ll compare it to what we see on the road.” Braska winds down the next staircase into the temple proper, takes the lead. “I’m sure we’ll meet our share.”

“If I looked any more like a ruffian they’d throw me in jail with that drunk trying to get to Zanarkand,” Auron says.

Braska stops in his tracks. “Zanarkand?”

Auron slows, then stops beside him, winces. “The other day, when the Maesters were waiting for you. There was a man barging into the temple, claiming to be looking for Zanarkand. I sent him to the Maesters to buy more time to find Yuna. I saw him down in the prison yesterday. He said they can’t keep him from trying to go home.”

_Home,_ Braska thinks. _To Zanarkand._

“Auron,” he says, testing, “do you think we might benefit from a guide?”

*

So much is wrong with this. So much is wrong with this entire situation, but Auron is going along with it. Like he went along with accepting the gift of a red haori from Sister Gyuri, too rich and too nice compared to everything he’s ever worn, he’s going along with this, and following Braska into the prisons of Bevelle to talk a drunk into joining them on the pilgrimage.

Lady Egia’s words echo within him. _Your job is to make sure he still wants to go through with it._ And that means letting Braska choose who accompanies him, who supports him on his path.

It was too much to hope, that Auron would be enough.

The prisons are well-lit, perpetual afternoon. Auron’s spent plenty of rotations down here, knows them well, but Braska simply follows the guard on duty and therefore Auron follows him. It’s strange, to be down here as a--well, not a free man, but not as what he was. Everything is strange, not being what he was. Another monk records this meeting, because all prison visits are recorded, and Auron’s never been on this side of the sphere. Braska doesn’t even seem to notice, and might not be aware, but honestly that might be because he’s covered from head to toe now.

Auron was right: the new scalloped robes suit Braska much better than the plain clothing of an acolyte. But all of him disappears behind the cloth, thick layers of purple and silver and red, and he’s covered his head as well, in long wrapped blue scarves, as if he misses the weight of the braid. It’s majestic, but alienating, setting him apart. _Like the pilgrimage,_ Auron thinks. _Like all of this._

The drunk doesn’t pray, doesn’t even stand as Braska approaches. Auron hangs back, at least for now, and keeps an eye on the proceedings. The drunk looks no better than he did in the Maesters’ chamber the other day; about Braska’s age or a little older but built like a veteran warrior or athlete, still shirtless, still unshaven with his hair wild and probably filthy, and even if he’s sober by necessity it hasn’t done his countenance any favors. And the enormous black tattoo on his chest, pointing sharply down past the low waist of his pants, is a clear indication that he doesn’t want anyone looking at his face, to say the least.

“You are the one they call Jecht,” Braska asks, “the man from Zanarkand. Are you not?”

Jecht practically spits. “Yeah, what of it?”

Never mind hanging back, that is _not_ how Braska is to be addressed, and Auron won’t let it stand. “Watch your tongue, knave!”

Jecht scoffs, but doesn’t get up, and Braska looks over his shoulder, eyebrow up. Auron tightens his fists, stands down. It’s Braska’s choice. He tells himself that over and over, reservations and all. _It’s Braska’s choice._

“My apologies,” Braska says, turning back to the cell. He shouldn’t have to apologize to filth like this. “I am Braska, a summoner. I’ve come to take you from this place.”

Well, at least that gets Jecht to his feet. But he doesn’t genuflect, just opens his palms and says “Sounds sweet, what’s the catch?”

“That easy to see, was it?” Braska laughs. Auron doesn’t share his humor, not at all. Not right now. “I soon leave on a pilgrimage, to Zanarkand.”

Jecht’s eyes open a fraction more. No wonder: he’s probably glad someone’s taking him seriously. Auron can empathize, against his better judgment. Maybe this isn’t such a completely awful idea. After all, Braska put the same trust in him. Then again, he’s not some drunk from the streets with no idea of sanctity.

\--well. He’s been called all of those things, at least once.

Braska goes on, “I’d like you to join us. It will be a dangerous trip, but if we do reach Zanarkand, my prayers will be answered. And you’ll be able to go home, we think. What say you?”

Evidently, Jecht doesn’t need a second to think about it. “Great, let’s go!”

“So quickly?”

“Anything to get out of here,” Jecht says, which dashes all of Auron’s once-increasing expectations. An opportunist. He’ll run at the first sign of trouble.

And Braska’s either oblivious to that, or unheeding, and harder to read than ever behind the new robes.

“Then it’s settled,” Braska says, but no. No, this isn’t right.

“My lord, no. This drunkard, a guardian?” It can’t just be jealousy. This isn’t a sensible move. It took Auron years to be in Braska’s confidence--no. No, not even weeks. Braska trusted him after that first conversation in the training courtyard. Not days after that, and they were hunting in Macalania together, and Auron nearly gave his life for Braska fighting the spherimorph. And Auron may never know what Braska saw in him back then, but surely he can’t see anything of the kind in Jecht now. Not like this.

Auron was never like him. Like _that._

But Braska can’t see any of this in Auron’s words, or if he can he makes no mention of it. “What does it matter? No one truly believes that I, a heretic married to an Al Bhed, could possibly defeat Sin. That’s what they say. No one expects us to succeed.”

“But, my lord--”

“Let’s prove them wrong,” he says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “A heretic, a vagrant from Zanarkand, and a disgraced warrior monk, doomed to obscurity for refusing the hand of a priest’s daughter? What delightful irony it would be if we defeated Sin.”

If Auron’s hands tense up any more, he may not be able to hold his sword when the time comes. Braska’s right. He’s making things more difficult for himself so that if he succeeds at all it will spite the Maesters, but he’s right. And he doesn’t know that the monks are recording this, doesn’t care that Jecht over there in the cell probably cares nothing for any of this--and he’s evoking politics. He’s playing politics even now, damning them but playing them.

Auron stands down. And Jecht yells, something about shutting up and getting him out of there, but no. Auron isn’t free from politics. If anything, he’s more wrapped in them now than he was in Maester Gaehanne’s charge. He’s at Braska’s side, but it isn’t enough. _He_ isn’t enough, not even to prove the world wrong. Not even enough of an obstacle, a handicap to bringing the Calm.

_Your job is to make sure he still wants to go through with it,_ Lady Egia said.

He wonders if she took every step to sabotage her own way, like Braska’s doing now.

*

Jecht sets the blitzball up a short length away, under Yuna’s watchful eye. She likes him too, it turns out, or at least she’s in awe of him, and Braska can’t blame her. A trip to the baths and a bowl of rice wine have taken some of the edge off Jecht’s somewhat brusque tone, and now he’s put his mind to impressing Yuna with all the bravado of a man half his age.

“All right, this is how it’s done!” With one last cock of his head, he springs forward, kicks the blitzball into the temple wall and headbutts it when it soars right back at him, then twists, backflips and spins as if the air is only water and there’s all the time in the world. He can’t even be _watching_ the ball, but he connects perfectly every time, elbow or head or knee, and the last rebound kick sends the ball soaring, up over the courtyard wall--

\--and smack into one of the fourth-floor windows. _Through_ one of the fourth floor windows.

Yuna covers her mouth, and Braska’s hangs open, and Jecht makes the most prominent show of humility Braska’s seen on him yet: “Well, shit,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “Thought that was open.”

“How dare you!” Auron shouts from the corner, “I told you this wasn’t the place, you inconsiderate dog--”

“Ahem.” Maester Jyscal pokes his head out the window in question, careful to avoid the spines of broken glass. “Lord Braska. I do hope this isn’t a prank.”

Braska stifles his laughter, bows, and shouts up. “My apologies, your Worship. My new guardian wanted to demonstrate his skill, and couldn’t help demonstrating his enthusiasm in the process.”

“I see,” Maester Jyscal calls down, humorless. And when Braska looks up, and catches Auron’s eye, Auron looks even sourer than Jyscal sounds. He’s been on edge since before they picked Jecht up from prison--which sounds perfectly reasonable to Braska, when he puts it that way--but it’s been getting progressively worse all day. _When a monk is angry, you know,_ Braska remembers, and he’s known all along, but he hoped it would have faded by now. Maybe it will when they get some time alone.

Again, Jecht doesn’t genuflect, but he does apologize, after his fashion. “Got a little carried away showing off for the lady. You get that, right?”

Predictably, it’s even harder to read Jyscal’s expression from four stories down than it is when he’s just above eye level.

After a long moment of staring in silence, Jyscal withdraws from the window and disappears, and Jecht bursts out laughing. “All right! Looks like no harm, no foul.”

“I certainly hope so.” Braska laughs as well. Leaving itself will be easier, now, knowing that there’s nothing anyone can do to thwart him. Only the road and his own resolve can stop him now, and with Auron and now Jecht by his side, he’ll have no trouble with the road.

The resolve, though--

Yuna claps her hands, and bows. “Thank you, Sir Jecht! I’m sure your team will take you back in Zanarkand.”

“They’d better! I’m the best they’ve got!”

\--he can’t let that be shaken, now more than ever. Latching onto Jecht’s case might help him, honestly, having someone else to be responsible for, someone to share the destination with. If all goes well, Auron will return to Yuna after this is done, but Braska knows himself well enough: someone else’s journey will keep him on the path if he can’t bring himself to keep going on his own.

“This is yours,” Jyscal says, reappearing overhead, “is it not?”

Jecht looks up just in time for his own blitzball to bean him between the eyes. A Guado’s strength, it seems, is not to be underestimated, and neither is Maester Jyscal’s aim. Jecht curses soundly and profusely, words Yuna knows not to repeat and Auron turns crimson at the sound of, and at the window Jyscal brushes off his long hands and withdraws once again.

_Someone else’s story,_ Braska thinks, _may just help me remember my own._

And even if it doesn’t come to that, Jecht will bring a certain levity to the proceedings.

*

Tonight’s tea--the last tea Braska ever intends on having from his own collection--is the very last of the ananas-weed tea from Besaid. He can’t remember when last he brought it out, but it brings the meal together, even lightens the temper of the air. Since this is the last meal he’s going to share with Yuna, he prepared as many of her favorite things as he could: steamed crab, noodles with mild cheese, honeyed kabocha with the seeds roasted for later. She eats a little of everything, and Braska manages too, and Auron finishes off the noodles and the kabocha when it becomes clear that it’ll go to waste otherwise. And the scent of the tea permeates it all, something comforting and warm, indelible in the tapestries and the cushions. Braska was afraid that a last night like this would make it harder to leave, but no. It’s wistful but final, as decisive as it needs to be.

Auron rises from the board, brushes himself off. “I should get going.”

“Get going?” Braska asks.

Auron nods. “I thought I should try patch things up with Kinoc.” _Before we leave,_ he doesn’t have to say. 

Yuna stands up from the board too, but curls in on herself, like a cat pet in the wrong spot. “You’re not staying tonight?”

“No. I’m going to sit vigil tonight. I should.” He glances at the door, but Braska doesn’t follow his eyes, and neither does Yuna. “My lord, thank you for dinner. I’ll see you in the--” 

Yuna bumrushes him, throws her arms around his waist and buries her face in his haori. Braska can just barely make out her muffled “Thank you, Sir Auron,” and doesn’t blame her at all. Auron never seems to know how to react when someone’s trying to hold him, but he does eventually unruffle, and tentatively hugs Yuna back.

“Goodbye, Yuna,” he says, low, simple. “I’ll come back for you, if I can.”

“I know,” she sniffles, but when she pulls back, she isn’t quite crying. Braska knows this face--he’s seen it on his little girl far too often. She’s held back too many tears for someone her age. She just looks up at him, bites her lip, and makes the stateliest prayer Braska’s ever seen. “Be well, Sir Auron. Be with Yevon.”

Auron returns the prayer in kind, but doesn’t say anything. He just nods at Braska, then shows himself out.

There really is something wrong with him, isn’t there. But Braska thinks, at least he won’t be leaving this unresolved--unlike anyone else he speaks to here, really. With Auron, he has time.

With Yuna, he doesn’t.

Once Auron is gone, Yuna comes back to the board, but doesn’t sit back down. Her hands are balled up, and Braska reaches up to cover one with his own. He can’t ask, _Is everything okay?_ , because it’s not, and asking will break this last pleasant night. He can’t pretend not to be going, but he can certainly make it hurt as everyone else as little as possible.

“I’m happy Sir Auron can go with you,” Yuna says, softly, the words barely making it down to Braska’s ear. “I was scared he wouldn’t go.”

Braska looks up at her, holds her hand a little tighter. “If he didn’t go, he’d have stayed with you.”

“But you need him more,” she says, as if it’s that simple. And maybe it is, to her, but Braska can’t help the selfishness that nags at him whenever he thinks of this long journey. Bad enough that he’s leaving his daughter behind--what kind of person _does_ that?--but taking Auron away from the only life he’s known, from the chance to rise in the ranks and make a change? For all his good intentions for Spira, it’s not that simple at all.

“Come on,” he says instead, “let’s clean up and get ready for bed.”

It takes a little more time than usual, since once the bowls are dry they have to be packed away. And after that, they put the board up against the wall too, rearrange the remaining cushions for bed. _Don’t pretend it’s all right,_ Braska tells himself, over and over. _Don’t pretend this isn’t the last time. It’s not abandonment if we both know I’m going._

She’ll be safe. She’ll be taken care of. And when he brings the Calm, she’ll have an easier life than she’d have ever had with him.

Bedtime comes soon enough, and Yuna doesn’t cry, just settles in. Braska doesn’t make a move to leave, and she pillows her head on his knee. “Why did you cut your hair, Byby?”

He smiles, as much as he can. “To show I’m leaving.”

She nods, just twice. “Like Wetyha’s princess?”

“Yes. Like her.”

“Can you tell another Wetyha story?”

On the one hand, he certainly could, but another idea occurs to him, and it’s worth a try. “I remembered a different story. Can I try telling this one first, and then if you’re still awake we can tell every Wetyha story there is. Is that all right?”

She nods again, pulls the blankets up over her shoulders and his shins. 

He starts, in Al-Bhed, since it’s going to be a long time before she’s allowed to hear it or speak it again, _“Remember Dehy the daughter of the fayth?”_

Yuna shakes her head, no. He’s not surprised: he’s never told her this story, even if it was one of the first Remty told him. But she’s probably not old enough to understand it even now, not all of it, but someone should know. Someone near her should know.

_“One day, Dehy woke up in the mountains, in a city covered in snow, and she didn’t know how she got there. Isn’t that strange? How could she know she hadn’t always been there, but still know that this place wasn’t right? And how could she feel as if something was missing, but not know what should have been there? It was if suddenly she forgot the word for ‘blue’ and looked up at the sky._

_“So Dehy went out into the city, and asked the people where she was, and how she had gotten here. And the people certainly told her, but they told her with weapons and anger. They said that Dehy had come with a giant forbidden machina and laid waste to the town, and killed many people, and that they would kill her in return.”_

Yuna pulls the blanket a little higher, winces. Braska hasn’t told Yuna many stories in which people are killed or threatened at all. So many of the Al Bhed stories are of tricksters and thieves, and this one certainly has a trickster in it--one of the most famous, Mulga the treasure hunter--but even his part in the story deals with death, and it’s more important that she hear Dehy’s. She needs to know that she isn’t alone.

_“But Dehy didn’t remember having done anything wrong. The entire world was new and strange, and the very first thing these people did was chase her down and threaten her. She ran, scared, and they chased her into a deep cave, and even when she escaped with the help of a cunning treasure hunter, she could still hear them screaming, ‘Revenge! Revenge!’_

_“The treasure hunter and his friends, who were all very clever, helped Dehy understand that she had been controlled by a powerful sorcerer, and that the reason she could not remember how she got to the city on the mountain was that her mind had been poisoned. The treasure hunter and his friends were already planning to take the sorcerer down, because he’d hurt them as well, in many different ways, so Dehy stayed with them. But even though they were kind and helpful, she still felt as if she did not belong among these people. Why had the sorcerer tried to control her? How had he managed it? And even if she hadn’t been in control of her actions, hadn’t the power she used to wreak havoc on the city been her own?_

_“Eventually, the band of heroes gathered enough strength to face the sorcerer. Dehy fought with them, of course, but the sorcerer laughed in her face! Why did he laugh? Because, he told her, all her strength had come from the fayth, that she was their child, and that of course it had all been her fault. He said she was, after all, a mindless beast, capable only of destruction. That’s why she had been so easy to control._

_“And Dehy believed him,”_ Braska says, tucks an errant strand of hair behind his ear, rubs an itch at the corner of his eye. _“It made sense, so Dehy believed him. And with the help of her comrades she found the fayth that had been her father, and he confirmed the truth for her. Dehy was born to a Spiran mother and only the spirit of a father, long dead, more beast than man._

_“What had hurt Dehy so much was half the truth. True, she had never been entirely human, and true, her magic and her power came from places beyond a human’s reach. But that didn’t mean she was mindless, or only capable of destroying. But the trouble with truth,”_ Braska says, stroking Yuna’s hair, _“is that it doesn’t do much good without understanding.”_

And understanding might not come to Yuna for years, Braska thinks: for all of her gifts, she’s still young, and furthermore he hopes she never has to understand it fully, never has to feel what he’s felt. But she will, and worse, even worse if Braska fails. Spira is a land that punishes children for their parents’ transgressions, a way of life built on passing guilt and responsibility on and on, generation after generation.

And Braska will break that cycle if it kills him. For her, and every child like her.

He breathes, manages enough air and strength to go on with the story. _“It took time for Dehy to understand. It always takes time to understand. And even after they drove the evil sorcerer away and unleashed the wrath of the fayth on him and foiled his plans, there was more to understand. In the battle with the sorcerer, Dehy was separated from her friends, and wandered the world alone, convinced that she wasn’t worthy of love, not only because of what she’d done, but because of what she was._

_After the fighting seemed over, she found other people the war had ruined: children, whose parents had lost their lives fighting the evil sorcerer. But unlike the treasure hunter and his friends, these children did not wish to fight, but only to live, and none of them knew what Dehy had done or who she was. So she joined them, and lived with them, and helped them make lives for themselves. But because she kept so much of herself apart, and let her past be a mystery, the children trusted her but did not understand her, and only sharing half the truth, can one share all the love?”_

Yuna shakes her head, no.

_“And what happened next? The treasure hunter and his friends, of course. They found her! They had come looking for her, because the evil sorcerer was not yet defeated, and wanted her to join the fight again. And because they came, the children she had saved learned about Dehy’s past, and what she was, and what she had done, and some of them were angry. And worse, Dehy’s refusal to fight came back to haunt her, and some of the children were hurt by the sorcerer’s aeon._

_“Trying to be only the part of her that came from the fayth hurt thousands of people, yes, but trying to cast that part aside hurt people too, and Dehy was always one of them._

_“But after the sorcerer’s aeon came back, and tried to kill her new family, Dehy understood at last. She called on the magic of her father and the compassion of her mother, and went out to face the aeon alone. And this time, when she fought, she let herself go, and trusted that she would not destroy everything she held dear, whether through acting too much or not acting enough. She dispelled the sorcerer’s aeon, and did not lose control of her power, and after the fight she cried from a happiness so strong she couldn’t contain it. And she saved all the people she loved, new friends and old, and they loved her, now that she could love herself. All of herself._

“All of you is strong,” Braska says, less story now, more truth. “All of you is beautiful, no matter where it comes from or what other people say. I want you to know that, Yuna. I want you to keep that with you, because people _are_ going to say horrible things. But that comes from them, not you. Your mother is Al Bhed and your father is a heretic, but the only parts of us in you that matter is the love in your heart that makes you stronger.”

Yuna nods again, but doesn’t stop this time, and throws her arms around Braska’s waist, holds herself as close as she can. “I love you, Byby.”

“I love you too, Yuna. Don’t forget that.”

“You too,” she says, muffled in his robes. “Don’t forget me too.”

“I never could,” he whispers. “I’m doing this for you. So you’ll have a whole world to love when I’m gone.”

*

Auron ends his vigil just before dawn, when the light past the temple windows is as grey as clouds but not a single one has crossed the sky. The view stretches out north, over the Calm Lands to Zanarkand, to the future that everyone he knows claims doesn’t exist for him. They’re wrong. It may be a short future, but only for Braska, and him. The rest of Spira will live longer, hope higher.

He leaves the tower room, shuts the door, starts down the stairs. Before last night, he’d only stood vigil once: the night he turned sixteen and formalized his vow. A hurricane had struck just after sunset, a storm with no warning, and the whisper among the apprentices was that Sin would come to Bevelle that night, that Auron would be the first to see it, that it would be the last thing Auron ever saw. So he took his vigil in the tower, just under Evrae’s roost, and the only part of the temple he could see through the storm was the roof, pelted with hours of violent rain. The stone around and beneath him trembled, but for the first two hours of the night Auron felt safe enough to meditate, trusted the temple and Yevon’s protection and that, even if Sin came to Bevelle he would do his duty. If he lived or died, it would be by Yevon’s grace. So he thought. So he still thinks.

But as the hours wore on, and the storm grew stronger, even the tiniest rattle of the windows pierced Auron’s calm. It was ridiculous, or at least he thought so: if Sin came, he would know. What would it matter, if he were the first to see it? This tower has no warning bells to ring, and it’s five flights down, no rooms, no elevator, to the nearest guard on his rounds. The whole point is to be without fear, without concern, without anything but trust.

And he told himself, then--nearly ten years ago, now--that it wasn’t fear that made him watch at the window.

Of course, Sin didn’t come that night, at least not to Bevelle, and the hurricane was just a hurricane. And what could one monk, not even an initiate until morning, do against a hurricane? But still Auron watched for the rest of the night, let his mind follow the storm as it passed, saw the moment the clouds broke and the puddles stilled on the roof and Evrae roared the dawn. And he thought, then, that surely this was part of the trial. Surely this beauty was as much a gift of Yevon’s as the safety and peace of the temple itself.

Last night, with no storm, Auron still watched at the window. The sun set, and has almost risen, and Evrae has left her perch but hasn’t shouted to wake the world. Spira is asleep.

Perhaps it always has been.

Auron only passes two groups of monks on his way to the grand hall, and they pay him more mind than he expects, perhaps more than they should. Of the four, three bow in silent prayer, and the fourth, an initiate, simply stares and nods, awe plain on his face. Auron nods at them in kind, but keeps going.

Braska and Jecht wait, alone in the hall, and when Braska turns to look at Auron it’s like the sunrise.

“How was your night?”

Auron nods, since it’s hard to say whether it was good, or bad, or anything simple. “It went well. Thank you.”

Jecht laughs. “What, did you do something special?”

Well, maybe there’s something simple enough for Jecht. Clearly the complexities of religion are going to be lost on this buffoon. “I said goodbye,” he decides.

Braska smiles, because of course he understands, but Jecht just goes back to fiddling with the sphere he’s somehow gotten ahold of. And with that, there’s nothing to do but start and leave. Braska leads, toward the long high road out of the temple. “Did you make your peace with Kinoc?”

“I did. He even took a sphere of me.” Braska doesn’t have to know that Kinoc will be master-at-arms now--if he doesn’t know already. The affairs of Bevelle are behind them, now, and will be forever once they pass through the double doors.

And they do.

This is it. This is the end of Auron’s life. All that remains is getting Braska to Zanarkand.


End file.
